


Two Witches and a Scoundrel • A Dragon Age Fantasy

by FlytsOfAngels



Series: Reflections of the Dragon Age [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II, Dragon Age Origins
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-17
Updated: 2014-11-17
Packaged: 2018-02-25 19:55:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 31
Words: 65,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2634263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlytsOfAngels/pseuds/FlytsOfAngels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Blight has been over for years, but the uprising in Kirkwall has just thrown Thedas into a new chaos.  Jaya Hawke and her sister, Bethany, discover new relationships as they journey to close the ancient dwarves thaig and discover the link between why the dwarves sleep like the stone and the ancient mages of pre-Tevinter.</p>
<p>Sequel to A Cure for a King by the same author ...</p>
<p>If you enjoyed this tale, you're invited to enjoy the first story of Rhoane Amell in A Cure for a King or the follow-up, Sisters of the Inquisition, which continues the story into the next game ...</p>
<p>Comments always welcome ...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue • Malcolm Hawke

Malcolm Hawke shuffled through the pages of orders for goods from the shop, The Wonders of Thedas, an exclusive emporium serving the needs of the mages of Ferelden. Located just off of the busy market square of the capital city of Denerim, The Wonders of Thedas had been the perfect place for him to start this new life with his wife, Leandra, and their firstborn child. It let him stay close to the sources of magical instruction and lore, while he also could simply blend into the background as the clerk, an unobtrusive role that kept him away from the scrutiny of the nobles who visited the shop most often.

It kept him away from the scrutiny of the templars as well.

Because the templars hunted for people like him: people who could channel magic and weren’t confined to the grounds of a Circle of Mages, kept close, under guard lest one of them turn to blood magic and be overtaken by a demon. He was what they would call an “apostate,” uncontrolled and unregulated by the restrictions of the Circle and the looming presence of the templars. To them, he was the greatest threat that the kingdom of Ferelden faced from day to day.

It was not the life he had wanted for himself or Leandra. Or their little girl. When he had made his bargain with the Grey Wardens, he had known that he would have to leave the Circle of Mages in Kirkwall, the place that he had called home since he was a child. He had also forced Leandra to abandon her influential family and their estates, but she had seemed so willing to risk everything for him, if only they could stay together. For him, it had been a simple decision: do as the Grey Wardens commanded or lose Leandra forever. They had threatened to kill her, not simply rip her from his life, and their escape to Ferelden was the only way that he could ensure that they all remained safe.

He vaguely heard the clatter of the bell that meant that someone had entered the shop and the proprietor’s voice saying, “Welcome to The Wonders of Thedas” in that strange monotone of his. The owner was a tranquil mage, deemed too weak or too unreliable to control his power and branded with lyrium to sever his ties to magic. The tranquil were often great craftsmen, despite their loss, and created some of the best magical runes, staffs, and armor for those who could still manipulate the energies around them. Malcolm had watched the tranquil proprietor in his workshop, seen him draw the lyrium rock into fantastical shapes and tiny pieces of almost limitless power. It was a remarkable ability, but he questioned the price that the tranquil paid in order to realize their crafting gifts. He could not say how he would react if his link to magic was permanently severed.

He was about to return to his accounts when he heard an impish giggle drift through the door toward him. Lifting his head, he strained to see into the brightly lit shop beyond his little clerk’s room, but he didn’t need to catch a glimpse of her to know that his daughter was there. Which meant Leandra would be, too. Rising eagerly, he crossed to the door of his office as the bell rang again.

“Welcome to the Wonders of Thedas,” the proprietor said blandly.

“Go on now,” Malcolm heard another man’s voice say encouragingly. “Look around and see what you like. I’ll purchase it for you, and you can take it back with you to your room in the Chantry.”

“But I don’t want to go to the Chantry,” another voice — younger and with a bit of a whine — replied. “I want to go back to the stable where I belong.”

Another mature man’s voice joined the conversation. “You know that’s not possible now. You’ve been sworn to Andraste’s service and named as my personal page. Your new duties start tomorrow.”

“Yes, ser,” the youngster muttered.

Looking around the edge of the door, Malcolm saw two men and a boy mounting the stairs to the upper level of the shop. The youngster was perhaps nine or ten years of age, and he led two older men — one dressed as a noble and one in the armor of a knight of the templar order — toward the table in the center of the raised section of the shop. Seeing the armor of the mage-catchers, Malcolm pulled himself into the shadows created by the door to his office and stayed as still as he could.

“What’s this, Mother?”

Hearing his daughter’s voice, Malcolm peered carefully around the doorframe and toward the people in the shop. He immediately located Leandra, sitting quietly beside the table, her hand lying gently on the deep black hair on their daughter’s head. The little girl was holding a golem doll that they had obtained from a trader with ties to Kal-Sharok, the dwarven kingdom, only recently. Leandra leaned close to the girl and whispered to her while Malcolm smiled at the beautiful picture that his two girls made.

“I want that!”

Malcolm’s head swiveled at the petulant demand from the young man, and he saw that the boy was pointing at the golem doll in his daughter’s arms.

The nobleman replied, “Now, Alistair, you see that the girl has it …”

At the same moment, Leandra reached for the golem and tried to take it from their daughter, saying, “Oh, no, my lord. She knows that she can’t actually have anything in the shop. The golem is yours.”

“I want that golem!” the boy demanded again.

Malcolm could see a frown settling between his daughter’s eyebrows. He knew that she was beginning to feel angry and shifted away from the doorframe to enter the room, just as a bright nimbus of red light flared all around the girl.

“But I had it first!” she exclaimed, clutching the doll to her chest.

Before Malcolm could even begin to register what had happened, the templar had his sword drawn from its scabbard and was pointing it directly at the girl. The mage froze again, unable to move toward his wife or his daughter: his little girl had never displayed magical talents until that moment, and they had manifested at the worst possible time — when she was standing right in front of a templar. He could feel the panic rising up in him even as he saw Leandra slip from her chair to embrace the little girl.

“Please, ser knight,” she begged, her eyes locked with the templars. “She has never displayed any ability before now. It’s a mistake … a fluke.”

“It was magic,” the templar replied, his voice stern. “The Chantry demands that I take her immediately so that she can be transported to the Circle Tower in Lake Calenhad.” Reaching with his off-hand, the templar tried to scoop the little girl up into his arm, but Malcolm’s daughter was too quick for him. Allowing the golem to slip from her hands, she threw her arms around her mother’s neck. Leandra gripped her tightly to her chest and rose, taking two steps backward, away from the templar.

“But she is only a baby,” Leandra cried, and Malcolm felt the piercing agony of her fear in his own body. Fear and crushing despair rushed through him: after everything that he had done for his family, they were about to lose their first-born daughter to the Circle of Mages. And there was nothing that he could do about it.

Sheathing his sword, the templar reached out to wrap his hands around the little girl’s waist to pull her toward him. Malcolm could see his daughter tighten her grip on her mother’s neck, and then she was in the templar’s grasp, her little arms straining toward Leandra, her legs kicking against the unforgiving metal of the knight’s armor. The little girl started to scream, each outburst piercing through his heart like a lance of fire.

“What name can I give the Circle when I file my report?” the Templar was asking over the little girl’s shrieking.

Leandra looked around her, uncertain, tears already pooling in her beautiful, brown eyes. “Her name is Rhoane Ha- …,” she started and then suddenly stopped. Malcolm watched as she twisted a lock of her black hair around a finger, something she only did when she was lying. But why?

“Rhoane Amell,” she said strongly, spelling their daughter’s first name and supposed last name — Leandra’s own maiden name — for the templar. “She’s Rhoane Amell. But please, ser, don’t take her from me.”

But the templar had already moved toward the stairs, and Malcolm watched as Leandra stared after her daughter, tears streaming down her face. They shuddered in concert —– husband and wife, father and mother — listening to the little girl’s cries of “Mother! Mother!” as the templar crossed to the door and exited the shop.

Malcolm saw the nobleman place his hand on the boy’s shoulder and push him toward the stairs, the golem doll wrapped tightly in the youngster’s arms. As he passed Leandra, he heard the man say, “I’m sorry, my lady. So deeply sorry.” He and the boy walked down the stairs, and Leandra collapsed in a sobbing heap on the floor.

Whatever trigger for self-preservation that had held Malcolm motionless suddenly released, and he raced across the shop and fell to his knees beside his wife, gathering her against his chest and letting his own tears fall softly into her black hair. He crushed her to him, feeling her sorrow in the sag of her body against his and the shudder of every breath that she took. He was vaguely aware of the clatter of the bell above the door and knew that the nobleman and his young charge had left But it didn’t matter: their Rhoane was gone now, taken away to the Circle Tower, and they had little hope of ever seeing her again.

“I had to protect you,” he heard Leandra gasping out between her sobs. “I couldn’t let them know that she was related to you. So I used Amell. Oh, Maker, did I do the right thing?”

Malcolm whispered gently to her, trying to reassure her even as he struggled against his own screaming urges to fight the templars for his child or flee before they came back for him. No matter what, he vowed to himself, this would never happen again.


	2. Part One • Chapter One • Fenris

Fenris watched in despairing horror as Hawke leaped past him again — always forward, always into the depths of the fray — her two curved axes flashing in the sun and spraying both him and her equally with bright red blood. He swung his halberd in a sweeping arc, just missing the back of the ankle that was closest to him and decapitating the bandit who was moving in on her left flank. Festis bei umo canavarum, woman! he cursed silently. Even now, after six years of battling at her side, she still made his blood boil. And it wasn’t just the anger that she created within him day after day. It was the passion, the deep need for her laugh and her scent and her touch that forced him to wage two battles here among the bandits — one with them and one with himself. Because she had to live; and he had to make certain that that happened.

She rushed past him again, her Mabari hound at her heels, her face set in a determined frown, leaving him to handle clean up among the injured and exhausted bandits in front of them. One sweeping motion sliced open a man’s belly, his entrails spilling from between his fingers as he stared at Fenris with a look that mirrored his own horror at Hawke’s behavior. Yes, you know how it feels to have lost control of everything that made you who you are, the elf thought, calmly slipping the point of his weapon’s blade across the man’s throat. And now you feel it no more. Lucky bastard.

The remaining bandit in front of him fell with a dagger protruding from his right eye socket, and the elf looked over his shoulder to see Isabela standing just behind him, a wicked grin spreading across her face.

“That was invigorating,” she smirked at him. “What are we doing to celebrate?”

Sheathing his halberd in its shoulder harness, he frowned at her and turned just in time to see Hawke reaching out to help Anders back to his feet. The frowned deepened as she smiled at the mage, laughing merrily at something he said that was meant for her ears alone. The elf saw him grin in return, lightening the deep sorrow that usually lined his face and triggering a flash of jealousy within Fenris. Maker take them all, he thought, feeling the lyrium of his tattoos heat beneath his skin.

“If I were you,” Isabela murmured, “I’d take that advice that I gave Donnic a long time ago. Just bend her over a basin.”

“If you will remember,” he returned in a fierce, low whisper, “she has been ‘bent over a basin.’ Little good that it did either of us.”

“Maker’s breath, that was — what? — three years ago? Four? I’m surprised neither one of you has exploded by now.” Isabela bent to drag her dagger from the bandit’s eye. “Unless you’ve been fishing in other waters?”

Turning to face the pirate, Fenris answered, “There are no other waters. You know as well as anyone that there is only she.”

Isabela swaggered up to him, her hips rolling easily from side to side, suggesting the rise and fall of a ship’s deck even here in the wilderness of the Free Marches. She smiled, wiping her dagger on some piece of cloth she had picked up from among the bandits and slipping the knife over her shoulder into its sheath. “I know it’s not my place, lovely,” she purred at him, each syllable suggestive and promising, “but you can trust me when I say that there comes a time in every man’s life when he has to sheathe his sword. Just to remember what it feels like for a few moments.”

“If you’re suggesting …”

As he watched, Isabela pretended to be offended and replied, “Of course I’m not suggesting that you take a tumble with me. Even though I can assure you that you would never have better. All I’m saying is that unless you do something, everything that you think you see when you look at them will come true.”

Fenris looked back over his shoulder at Hawke and Anders. They were speaking with each other in intense whispers, much like he and Isabela had shared. But somehow, their talk looked more intimate — less like friends and more like lovers the longer he watched them. Crossing his arms over his chest, he looked away.

“Well, anyway,” Isabela said, her voice rising in volume. She called back to Hawke, “They’re all dead now. I get first pick of their stuff.”

He couldn’t help himself: he looked over at Hawke to see how she reacted to Isabela’s remark. She smiled at the pirate — or maybe she was smiling at the both of them, but he wouldn’t let himself believe that she smiled at him — and waved for Isabela to go ahead and start looting the bodies. Her conversation with Anders continued, becoming more heated, more passionate, even as the elf watched.

“Oh, Maker’s breath,” he heard Isabela exclaim. “When did they start making bandits so fat! I thought everyone who stooped to petty theft did it because they were starving. Fenris, come help me.”

Ripping his stare away from Hawke and the mage, he walked over to the pirate and helped her flip over the rotund body of what they had thought was one of the bandits. His clothing told Fenris another story: this was someone of power and wealth, probably killed by the bandits just before they had arrived. Isabela lifted his purse into her hands, hefting it from one to the other as if to determine the contents by weight, and then pulled to strings to open it. Squatting down next to the corpse, she tugged a corner of the man’s cloak across the road and emptied the contents of the purse onto the fabric.

Fenris heard her whistle, long and low. Curious, he knelt down beside her and looked at what had spilled across the cloak. It was a collection of coin and uncut gemstones, all bigger than the tip of his thumb, in a bright rainbow of colors. Hawke’s dog snuffled up to them, his nose busily tracking through the bodies.

“Who would be so foolish as to travel alone with so much wealth?” Fenris muttered, half to himself and half to the pirate.

Isabela considered the scene around her. “Does it seem to you that the randomness of their clothing is just a little too … uniform? They’re all dressed so much alike. Maybe he was betrayed?”

Fenris snorted in disgust. “By his own bodyguards? Only a fool hires those he can’t trust.”

“Or the desperate,” Isabela added. “Or those sent at someone else’s direction.”

Fenris looked at her from under the fringe of his white hair. “A messenger of some kind,” he conjectured, “escorted by a heavily armed guard, whose loyalty faltered the farther they got from their home?”

“We need to strip him,” Isabela said swiftly, reaching out to drag one boot from the foot nearest her. After shaking it vigorously — and producing nothing — she tossed it over her shoulder and moved to take the other boot in her hands. The Mabari raced after the footwear and scooped it up in his mouth, gnawing on the tanned leather. “Well?” the pirate said, raising one eyebrow at Fenris. “What are you waiting for?”

The elf shrugged and shuffled forward to unclasp the man’s cloak from around his neck. Methodically, he untied the clothing, watching in a kind of shocked fascination as Isabela dragged the dead man’s trousers off of his legs in one easy pull. Turning them wrong-side-out, the pirate examined the seams, wrenching one of her knives over her shoulder to run in around edges of the material that was lining the trousers.

“You think this man was hiding something in his pants?” Fenris asked, curious.

“No,” the pirate replied. “It appears he wasn’t hiding anything other that the usual stuff in his trousers. More’s the pity.”

“Will you have to shred his undergarments, too?”

Isabela laughed. “Maker, I hope not. I’ve seen enough of the family treasure of fat men to last me a lifetime.”

Fenris looked questioningly at the pirate, but she ignored him, motioning for him to lift the corpse’s shoulders so that they could remove his coat and shirt, both of which Isabela quickly reduced to ribbons of cloth. She still discovered nothing out of the ordinary.

“Well, that’s disappointing,” she muttered, looking down at the almost completely nude corpse. “I don’t suppose he’s the kind who would carry messages only in the most private way.”

Startled, Fenris pulled back from the corpse a bit. “If you’re telling me that I have to destroy this man’s undergarments now …”

Isabela suddenly smacked the palm of her hand against her forehead. “The cloak!” she said, quickly squatting back down over the gemstones and coins and scooping them back into the dead man’s purse. She motioned for the elf to roll the body and reached down just as the man landed on his face again, away from the leather and silk, to scoop the cloak up into her hands. She studied the lining intently.

“There!” she exclaimed, pointing to a row of stitching on the inside of the cloak, holding it in front of the elf’s face so that he could confirm her discovery. He looked and saw nothing, shaking his head at her. “Men!” she remarked, drawing her dagger over the thread marks. “A cloak like this takes a certain kind sewing to wed the leather to the fabric. And if you actually knew anything about anything important, you could see that the stitchwork here is very sloppy. Someone detached the lining from the leather and then sewed it back into place.” Slipping her knife through the thread, she pulled the two materials away from each other.

A folded and sealed letter fell from the concealed pocket and landed in the dirt at their feet.


	3. Part One • Chapter Two • Jaya Hawke

She was ready to give up, she admitted to herself. After spending the entire afternoon arguing with Anders about the foolishness of his leaving them, she was exhausted and angry, too tense to eat or sleep. Jaya wanted to rise up from her sleeping pallet and stalk out into the wilderness, away from their small camp, and scream into the blackness of the night. Maybe after that, she would come back and just gut them all — even Isabela, whose gentle good humor usually put her in a better mood.

She had seen the pirate and Fenris with each other on the road after their battle, and the memory burned inside of her like yesterday’s stew at the Hanged Man. Maker knew what they had been saying as they talked in those quiet voices, and she had struggled against the nearly overwhelming urge to cross to them, demand to be included in their conversation. Because Anders had needed her in that moment when he was struggling to make his decision. She had tried to convince him that he was safer with them and that they could protect him better — even though they did draw attention by being a group of travelers — but he wouldn’t listen. Or maybe he had. She had gotten so lost in their arguments that she wasn’t exactly sure where they had left it.

She just couldn’t face it right now, losing another companion on this journey. The first to go had been Aveline and her husband, Donnic, who had slipped away when they had neared a port city to find a ship to take them back to Ferelden. The king himself had offered to accept the former guard captain of Kirkwall back into his armies, if she chose to return to her homeland. And she was bringing Donnic, as reliable and steady a soldier as Hawke had ever met, with her. The king would welcome them both gladly, she was sure.

Merrill had departed shortly after the soldier couple, telling Jaya that she had heard of a clan of Dalish nearby that might allow her to join them. Whether there really had been a group of elves in the region, she never knew, but she hoped that some of Merrill’s own people had been able to welcome her, to bring her home and help her begin to heal the deep spiritual wounds that she had inflicted on herself. Merrill, of all of them, deserved the chance to start again.

Varric had disappeared at some point near another city, telling her that he needed to check his connections and would catch up with them when he could. A lie, of course, but he was so good at spinning his half-truths that she had believed him. Jaya wrapped her arms around herself and squeezed tightly: half of her companions gone and the prospect of even more leaving at any moment. Loss and uncertainty surrounded her like a morning fog coming up through the Gallows into Kirkwall, and it left her shrouded in a gloom and despair.

She would be the first to admit that she had problems dealing with her emotions — especially when she was faced with the loss of someone dear to her. After the army’s overwhelming defeat at Ostagar, she had raced back to her home in Lothering with her brother, Carver, pushing her deep grief and boiling anger down under the need to run and run until she knew that Leandra and Bethany, her mother and sister, were safe. After Carver was killed by the darkspawn ogre as they tried to escape the growing horde, she had willed herself to remain strong for her mother and sister. And for Aveline, who had been forced to take her own husband’s life before the darkspawn taint overtook him. 

And in Kirkwall, after they had escaped the darkspawn ravaging Ferelden, it had been seven years of struggle: everything she gained dusted with the ashes of destruction and death. Bethany had been forced to join the Grey Wardens in order to survive her own darkspawn taint, and Leandra had been stolen from her by a madman who had used parts of her body to recreate his dead love. Gone and dead — every person and thing that had held her hope and happiness had been ripped from her, and she had had no way of preventing it. She had poured herself into battling whatever enemies she could find, forcing herself to move and fight just so that she wouldn’t feel.

Frustrated by her inability to sleep, Jaya rose from her pallet and walked away from the gentle glow of their campfire. Telling her hound to stay, she pressed forward through the waist-high marsh grass until she found the small, freshwater pond that they had used for their drinking, cooking, and cleaning. It was ringed by reeds and overhung by a great tree that trailed its vine-like branches down to brush the still liquid. She stopped with the toes of her boots just touching the water’s edge and looked down at the mud beneath her feet. Leaning down, she picked up a handful of damp pebbles and started throwing them, one by one, into the dark waters in front of her.

She started when Fenris’s voice came to her out of the darkness but kept chucking the stones away from her.

“You were meant to be sleeping, Hawke,” he said, the rich, deep tone melting some of the resistance inside of her. No, she told herself, he was leaving, too: probably planning his escape with Isabela that afternoon in those intense whispers and sidelong glances in her direction. Was it possible to resist the pirate’s sensual overtures? Picking through the rocks in her hand, she hurled the largest one she could find with extra force, stepping forward and sloshing water up the sides of one boot.

She kept her back to him as she replied, “What we mean to happen and what actually does happen tend to be two completely different things. Especially in my case.”

Jaya didn’t hear the elf move, but she felt him behind her, the warm power of his body radiating toward her. He didn’t touch her — of course he didn’t — but she hadn’t expected him to, either. Their relationship had been a complex dance, like something they would perform at court in Orlais with the couples spending more time apart than they did together. Every time they had drawn near each other, the next series of steps in their lives had driven them away, making her feel like she was constantly starting over with him. It was worse than watching the fishermen on the docks in Kirkwall when they struggled against an especially large catch: oftentimes they spent hours just letting the fish take out line to exhaust itself before they brought it onto the shore.

And now she assumed that he would be off with the pirate to adventure freely around Thedas and play the part of her love slave. How fitting for Fenris. He just couldn’t leave the idea of having a master behind him.

Curse the both of them; she hoped they got lost at sea.

“Hawke.” Fenris’s voice was low and intense, and she heard something in the longing of his tone that echoed throughout her being. And made her only angrier with him.

Turning around, she raised both hands and pushed violently against his chest, forcing him to step away from her. Anger burned inside of her in rushing flames, searing reason and logic from her brain. She was a being of emotion alone, ready to rage against all of the Maker’s creation if need be.

“What, Fenris?” she demanded, her voice rising in volume. “Are you trying to comfort me now? To give me some reason not to despair? You might as well forget it, because we both know that you are completely incapable of offering me comfort of any kind.”

“Now?” he growled back at her. “You want to discuss this in the middle of the wilderness? In the middle of the night?”

“Maker, yes!” she shouted at him. “Here. Now. Anywhere. Anytime.”

She could see the elf’s lyrium tattoos start to shimmer in the starlight, a sure signal that his own anger was burning within him. But she wasn’t concerned, and she wasn’t afraid. Everything was lost to her now, and he could join them for all she cared.

Fenris crossed his arms over his chest; under the twinkling of the stars, she couldn’t see his expression. But she could hear the tense anger in his voice when he spoke to her. “You’re a fool, woman,” he said shortly. “You’re risking everyone by this outburst.”

“Risk! My existence has been nothing but risk.” She swallowed hard against the memories that crowded into her consciousness. “Risk and loss and death. They follow me like my own shadow. They are my personal escorts through life.”

“And you think you’re alone …”

“No,” she screamed, her fists clenching tightly at her sides. “You stupid, self-absorbed …”

“Will you keep your voice down?” Fenris snarled at her. “You’re going to wake Isabela and Anders.”

“Too late,” the pirate called, stepping toward them with a lit branch in her hand. “I’m up now. And Anders is gone.”

It came crushing down on her: the guilt, the pain, the suppressed fear. It was too much, too soon, when she was too weak. She fell to her knees in the mud, wrapping her arms around her head, and howled her sorrow into the inattentive, uncaring reeds around her.


	4. Part One • Chapter Three • Isabela

She was a little surprised by the effect that her announcement had on Hawke, Isabela had to admit. They had recognized long ago that traveling with Anders after everything that had happened in Kirkwall was going to be dangerous. Their companions had accepted that danger, knowing the little group that they had formed had touched each of them more deeply than any of them could admit. And Hawke was certainly the heart of it all. But she’d never seen her friend react like this before.

Raising her flaming branch, she turned so that the light fell across Fenris’s face and the thunderous scowl that he was wearing. Their eyes met, and she made a small motion with her free hand, inviting him to step into the breach, to take Hawke into his arms and comfort her like she needed to be comforted. But he turned and stalked off into the darkness.

Idiot, the pirate thought to herself. He was like a sailor caught between a growing storm and the brilliant blue of a clear sky: unfortunately, he didn’t have the good sense to trim sail and race for the comfort of a safe harbor. He had to know that Hawke was his safe harbor, the home of his heart. He certainly implied that he knew it when he was talking to her in the afternoon. What was his problem?

Sighing, Isabela tossed the flaming branch into the pond and listened to the sizzle of the fire dying when it struck the water. Bending over, she pulled Hawke up into her arms, letting her friend’s tears fall onto her shoulders and gently stroking her brown hair while she whispered soothing sounds into the darkness. Long moments passed, and Jaya’s sobs became little hiccoughs of sorrow as she struggled to regain her composure. When she pulled away, Isabela let her go.

“Storm passed?” she asked gently, handing her friend a handkerchief that she kept tucked into the top of one long boot. “I think this is mostly clean.”

It was good to hear Jaya chuckle at her off-hand comment, but Isabela knew that, if she continued to joke with her friend, Hawke would just bottle everything up again. She might speak to the world in double entendre and ribald asides, but Isabela was a woman who understood deep emotion. And she knew that she couldn’t let her friend wall herself off again.

“You two are like the rocks and the tide,” she said, accepting her handkerchief from Jaya and tucking it back into her boot. “You pound against each other, knowing that neither one of you is going to break, but always drawn together. Two forces of nature that can’t help the way they react to their counterpart.”

“I can help it,” Jaya replied on a soft sob, “when he goes away with you.”

Isabela crowed with laughter. “Me? As much as I enjoy the thought of the terror he would create in the crew of any ship we boarded across the Amaranthine Ocean, I could never have his heart. Or his bed.” Reaching out, she placed her fingers under Hawke’s chin and tilted her head. The dim starlight was reflected in the wet trails on Jaya’s cheeks. “There are some things that are decided in the first moments that we meet, my friend. Between you and Fenris, it was certain way back then. We’ve all known it, except the two of you, it seems.”

Hawke turned her face away and wrapped her arms around her body. “I thought it was decided, too, ‘Bela. But I hurt him, and then he hurt me. And I’m not sure that he’s ever going to forgive me for siding with Anders and the mages in Kirkwall, as much as he stood by me during the battle.”

“He knows where he belongs,” the pirate whispered, draping her arm around her friend’s shoulders and hugging her tightly. She was relieved when she felt Hawke’s arm slip around her waist and squeeze her in return. Tilting her head, she let it rest against Jaya’s.

“Are you sure,” Hawke murmured in the darkness, “that we belong together?”

“The only thing I am more certain of,” the pirate answered, “is that I cheat at cards.”


	5. Part One • Chapter Four • Rhoane Amell

Rhoane picked up her mage robes, her body soothed by the cool bath and her husband’s amorous attentions. She looked over at his lanky, sleeping body, stretched out across their bed, his red-brown hair spilling around his shoulders. A sense of comfort and safety swept through her, along with that gentle shudder of desire that she felt whenever he was near. Slipping the cloth over her head, she let the hem of her robe drop toward the floor.

And frowned when it stopped just after covering her breasts.

Maker take it, she was going to have to let these out again. Her body was changing shape too quickly now as the child grew within her. Grasping the hem between her fingers, she shimmied and wriggled until it fell to the floor. Or maybe she could give up robes now. There was no reason to parade through the world, telling everyone that she was a mage. Especially here in Antiva City. And with the news they’d just had from Kirkwall, maybe it was a better idea.

Besides, she’d grown accustomed to wearing trousers and a jacket, like a work-a-day man did. When she and Abelas had been traveling through the Tevinter Imperium, she had worn pants so that it would not be as obvious to passers-by that she was a mage. And her husband always said that he preferred the more defined outline that trousers gave her bottom.

“What are you smiling about, ma vhenan?” Abelas murmured from the bed.

Rhoane saw that the elf was awake and had propped himself up on one elbow. “Oh, you saw that, did you?” she teased. “And not the horrific frown that crossed my face when my robes wouldn’t drop down past my breasts.”

Abelas chuckled. “A wise man knows which battles to fight and from which to flee.”

Crossing to the bed, she sat beside him and ran her fingertip along the long contour of one of his ears. His strange, elven eyes seemed to glitter in the fading light of the afternoon sun, like a field of grass after a light rain shower.

“I was wondering whether you might not enjoy my pregnancy better if I gave up my mage robes and started wearing trousers again.”

She laughed when he growled and then pulled her across him, onto her back amongst the rumpled bedclothes. Winding her fingers through his hair, she pressed her lips to his in response to his kisses, feeling the heat rise within her. When at last he lifted his mouth from hers so that he could trail his lips down her throat, she whispered, “You’re wrinkling me.”

“No, ma vhenan,” he murmured back, “I am ravishing you.”

She giggled, sliding her hands down to cup his buttocks in her hands. Hearing him gasp, she said, “Yes, but you’ve already ravished me today. Twice, in fact. And I really don’t want to miss dinner.”

“You and your unruly stomach,” he muttered against her ear. “How many times must its demands come between me and my pleasures?”

“Only once,” she said and then smiled as he pulled away from her to look into her eyes. “At least today. Maybe more in the future. As you say, it’s unruly.”

One of his rare smiles flashed across his face, and her husband pressed a kiss onto the tip of her nose. “Stomachs first, then,” he said, rising from beside her. “But I warn you that there is only so much interference I will endure.”

Me, too, the mage thought to herself, slipping from the bed and attempting to straighten at least a little of the mess that her husband had made of her robes. If she were honest with him, she would skip days of food simply to luxuriate in his embrace and the hot passion of his kisses. But Zevran had been insistent that they join him for dinner tonight. She wondered what the assassin was planning.

She wandered over to the dressing table and lifted her comb from the tabletop, dragging it through her deep black hair while she crossed to the open window that looked out over the harbor. The waning rays of the sun were shimmering over the waters, reflected in deep pinks and oranges, creating a mystical dreamland in which the huge barges and pleasure ships floated. Sighing in contentment, she pulled another section of her hair through the comb.

“We should cut this,” Abelas, dressed for dinner, murmured behind her. Starting, she dropped her comb to the floor and before she could reach for it, it was in his hand. He sectioned her hair and started combing it for her.

“What’s your reason now?” she asked. “You’re not trying to hide me from the Imperium, which was probably the most logical argument for cutting my hair off. And besides a little bother with the heat, it’s perfectly acceptable here in Antiva City. Are you trying to tell me that you dislike my hair after all, Abelas?”

“No, Rhoane,” he returned, slipping a wide swath of her combed hair over one shoulder. “Your hair is a part of your beauty. I was just imagining it with beans crushed in it by tiny fingers.”

Laughing, she leaned back against his chest and wrapped her hands around the arm that snaked around her waist to pull her more tightly against him. “I’ll just have to take more baths,” she replied mischeviously.

She felt Abelas sweep all of her hair over one shoulder and the hot press of his lips against the side of her throat. Reaching up, she wrapped her hand around the back of his neck to keep him close and relaxed into his embrace.

“You almost convince me, the two of you,” another voice said from the doorway, “that there is such a thing as true love.”

“Hello, Zev,” Rhoane called over to her friend who was just shutting the door behind him. Straightening away from her husband, she stepped out of his embrace and sectioned her hair to put it into its usual braids. “I’m sorry if we’re making everyone wait.”

The elf assassin waved a hand at her. “Not at all, my dear friend,” he said. “My other guests have only just arrived and are settling into their own rooms as we speak. I was stopping by to say that we are using one of those extra rooms that seem to serve no purpose to gather together before dinner.”

“The parlor?” she asked, tying a leather band around the ends of her braided hair.

“How do you know of such a thing?” the assassin asked. “All I can think of is that it is the unused room on the left side of the staircase.”

Laughing, she looked over at her husband and extended her hand to him. When he had taken it, she replied to Zevran’s question. “I’ve read a lot of books, Zev. It seems like every other room in a mansion like this is called a ‘parlor.’”

“Ah, I see,” the elf assassin continued, holding the door open for her. “And here I thought that there were little-used rooms in the Circle Tower that were called ‘parlors.’ You disappoint my wild imaginings.”

“Really? Parlors in the Circle Tower?” she teased him.

The assassin laughed and replied, “Certainly. The Parlor of Passionate Hand-Holding. The Parlor of Stolen Kisses. The Parlor of Late Night Assignations …”

“We did study magic there, you know,” she replied, laughing.

“Oh, I am certain,” Zevran replied loftily. “In between the stolen kisses, of course.”

The three of them descended the staircase into the front entry hall, the assassin arguing that stolen kisses were the sweetest type that could ever be obtained. Rhoane and Zevran were laughing with each other when they crossed the hallway and walked into the “unused room on the left side of the staircase.”

“Zev, if you’re going to leave me kicking my heels in this enormous pile of a house of yours, you’re going to have to expect some things to go missing.”

Rhoane stopped just inside the doorway, startled by the sound of the voice that greeted them when they entered the room. It sounded familiar, like a long-forgotten dream or a song from your childhood that someone hummed in the marketplace. Looking toward the source of the voice, her eyes met the gaze of the pirate, Isabela.

“Isabela?” she asked, disbelieving.

The pirate gaped back at her. “The Hero of Ferelden?” She swayed across the room toward them, a smile spreading across Isabela’s face. “When Zevran told me that he had a surprise for me, I never imagined this!”

“And my bet?” the assassin said, holding out his hand, his palm flatly spread upward.

Isabela laughed. “Wouldn’t you know it: I’ve left my purse in my other boots.” Sliding up to Zevran, the pirate slipped her arms around his neck. “You’ll have to come by later to collect.”

“A bet is a bet, vixen,” the assassin replied, easily slipping away from her embrace. “I will collect what is due me.”

“Come on, Zev. I need that money if I have any hope of winning another ship. After my latest acquisition burned in the fires around Kirkwall …” She sighed. “And I’d never even sailed her beyond the gates to the harbor.”

Rhoane was introducing Abelas to the pirate when she heard the door click open again and a tense female voice said, “Thank you.” Looking up, she saw a woman, a little taller than herself and wearing leather armor, enter the room followed by the most incredible elf she had ever seen. His skin was lined with white patterns — not like the Dalish’s tattoos — but in regular lines and whorls across the skin of his entire body. His hair was snowy white and hung across his forehead in casual disarray, obscuring part of his right eye from her view. He was armored from head to toe in black metal, formed into points and spikes at nearly all the joints. He looked over at her, and when their eyes met, a frown deepened between his black eyebrows.

“A mage,” he snarled, one hand reaching over his shoulder for a weapon that was no longer there. “With a slave.”

As she watched, the tattoos came alight, glowing blue-white as only lyrium-driven magic could. Lyrium, she thought, branded into his skin to give someone an almost limitless source of power. The shimmering warrior had started across the room toward her when she reacted, enveloping Abelas in a globe of protective energy and calling fire up on the fingertips of one hand.

Suddenly, Zevran was between them, his arms extended to still their forward motion and keep them apart. Trusting her friend, she let the flames drip away from her fingers and lowered the barrier around her husband. The elven warrior’s lyrium tattoos continued to glow, but he stopped advancing toward her.

“My friends,” the assassin was saying, “there is some misunderstanding here. If you will please, I will introduce the Hero of Ferelden, Rhoane Amell, and the Champion of Kirkwall, Jaya Hawke.”

Before she could think, the words were out of her mouth. “Hawke. That was my father’s name!”

At the same moment, the woman who had entered with the lyrium-branded elf was saying, “Amell. That was my mother’s na- …”

Rhoane stopped, staring into the misty grey eyes across from her. She could see it — the set of the jaw and the brown of the hair were so like her memories of her father. And those eyes. Grey like the fogs that had coiled around the Circle Tower, rising from the depths of Lake Calenhad. She remembered those eyes most of all. Her hand rose without her even thinking of it, extending across the gap between them, but the Champion of Kirkwall had turned on her booted heel and left the room.


	6. Part One • Chapter Five • Fenris

“You should go to her,” Abelas was saying to him for the fifth or sixth time, swirling his glass so that the deep, red wine sloshed up the sides, releasing the aroma of grape and moss into the space between them. Unfortunately, Fenris was just drunk enough to cease ignoring that comment.

“Why don’t you go to your wife?” he asked, tipping the wine bottle back and letting the liquid splash into his mouth. He swallowed violently and set the container back down on the table with a decisive snap.

The other elf smiled at him, a gentle smirk that let Fenris know that Abelas had considered doing just that, but had decided that it was better to be here and whole than with his wife and injured — or worse — dead. “Rhoane will need some time alone to … consider … what she learned this evening. It’s better to let her think things through a bit before I try to speak with her.”

Fenris let out a bitter bark of a laugh. “At least yours will think,” he replied. “Mine has probably broken everything within reach.” He stared at the bottle in his hand, the gloomy despair of realizing that he was uncertain whether Hawke was actually his or not settling around him. His hand tightened around the flask, the pointed metal of his armor scraping annoyingly against the blown glass.

“Is this always so difficult?” he muttered.

“I could not say,” Abelas replied. “This is the first time that I have been allowed to love someone. My Tevinter masters never deemed me handsome enough to breed, and after I started serving the scholar, he was more interested in what I could do for his career than bringing more slaves into the household. We traveled too many days in every year to make me a good mate for any woman.”

The warrior elf nodded, one fingertip idly scraping at the wax seal around the long neck of the bottle. In his mind, he was running his fingertips down the curve of Hawke’s throat, letting his flesh just barely graze hers. Even after all the years that had passed between that dark night of passion and today, he could still remember the heat of her skin under his hands and the soft moans that had escaped from her lips. The few kisses that they had shared since that night had done nothing to lessen the fire that she stirred inside of him whenever they met. He wondered idly if Abelas felt the same way about his wife, but he could not wish that kind of torment on anyone. This torture was his alone to endure.

“How did you come to love her?” he asked, taking another long drink.

Setting his untouched glass of wine on the table between them, Abelas answered, “My master was traveling in Ferelden some time after the end of the Blight, although he never told me exactly what he was seeking. He foolishly thought that telling the templars that he was a member of the Tevinter Imperium would protect him; instead, he was taken to the Circle Tower and tested for magical ability. When they discovered he had none, he was allowed to examine books in their libraries, which I fear is what he actually wanted all along.”

“Those of the Imperium always hide the true purpose of their actions,” the warrior elf said bitterly, downing another swallow of fermented liquid. He saw Abelas nod his head and waited for him to continue.

“Rhoane needed to travel to Tevinter, to pursue …” the elf paused slightly and then continued, “… research that she had begun in the Tower. She journeyed with us, disguised as another servant to my master.” A wistful look crossed Abelas’s face, and Fenris felt a twinge of jealousy that this man had memories of a woman that could bring him such peace and joy. “I began to love her when she insisted every night to be allowed to help with the tasks around our campsites. Each evening, for weeks, she asked. And then she saved me from being possessed by a demon and insisted that I decapitate my own master. Who could not love a woman who would rescue one so thoroughly from his chains?”

“I hadn’t realized,” Fenris muttered. “Hawke protected me when I went to kill my former master, but …” He halted, the words sticking in his throat.

“But that is not when you began to love her?”

“Venhedis, no!” the warrior elf growled, his fingers tightening on the neck of the bottle. Then he sighed. “I think they must be sisters. They seem equally as stubborn as the other.”

Abelas chuckled. “Then we must suffer equally, my friend: when she pushes past you on the battlefield or leaves you to scout ahead alone. You die a thousand times until she is back in your sight. Am I right?”

Fenris lifted the bottle to his lips again and swallowed before replying gloomily: “Yes. A thousand thousand.”

Abelas rose from the table and crossed to the chair where the lyrium-branded elf was sitting. He pressed one hand down on Fenris’s shoulder, saying, “No matter how much you love her and desire only to protect her, she will be who she is. She cannot change her heart, even though she longs for you to hold it safely in your hands.”

He frowned, considering the elf’s words. “I’ve never asked her to change for me.”

Abelas smiled. “Take her some food,” the Grey Warden’s husband suggested. “She is probably regretting that she left without sharing any dinner with us. She will rant at you. She may even blame you for everything that has happened. But deep within her heart, she will be happy that you are there.” He lifted his hand and turned to leave, but added one more thing. “At least that is what I am hoping in my own case.”

Fenris snorted and watched as Abelas walked from the dining room, leaving him alone with the mostly empty wine bottle and the remnants of their dinner. The servants had left the two elves alone in the darkening dining room, long after the Hero of Ferelden had claimed that she needed her bed and Zevran had taken Isabela off to his favorite gambling den. He had sat with Abelas, slowly becoming more and more intoxicated, rejecting every suggestion that the other elf had made for him to go to Jaya.

She was probably asleep by now, he thought. She couldn’t smolder in anger this long, could she? She had to have given in to the exhaustion of traveling and crawled into her bed.

Rising to his feet, he drained the last of the wine from the bottle and placed a small loaf of bread, some cold meat slices, and cheese onto an empty plate that had been set on the table for Hawke. He would take them to her, leaving them at her bedside when he found her dreaming. Then she would be able to take the edge off her hunger if she awoke. And just maybe, he would be able to look down into her sleeping face as he had during his watches in the wilderness and remember the press of her lips against his.

Mounting the stairs, he wandered down the hallway to the room he had seen her exit before dinner. He inhaled deeply and rapped softly on the door.

“What?” he heard Jaya snap. “Just come in.”

He gripped the handle of the door in his free hand and slowly turned it. Here was his moment: he could still turn away.

Stepping across the threshold, he let the door slip closed behind him. He heard Hawke’s Mabari whuff at him from his place in front of the fire and then he looked up into Hawke’s fiercely scowling face.

“Well?” she questioned angrily, crossing her arms on her chest.

He almost faltered. It would be easier just to walk back out the door, he thought. But somehow, his wine-soaked brain convinced him that everything would be just fine if he continued.

“Abelas,” he murmured, “your sister’s husband. He suggested you might be hungry.”

“No,” Jaya replied. “I’m not.”

Fenris looked around and noticed a desk on the other side of the room. Crossing to it — and right past the smoldering Hawke — he laid the plate on the surface and said, “I’ll leave this here in case you want it.”

Their eyes met, and he had to blink against the open aggression in hers: they reminded him of thunderclouds full of lightning, the bolts flashing in the grey-black but never touching the earth. Again, the level of his intoxication helped him ignore the warning in those brilliant eyes, and he asked, “Would you like to talk about it?”

“No!” she exploded at him. “I don’t want to talk about it. I want someone to tell me when I’ll stop being betrayed.” She turned on her heel and stalked toward the door and back, her voice pitched low and throbbing with her anger. “I want to know how many more secrets my family has hidden from me. I want to know why they felt it was necessary to hide the fact that I had a sister in the Circle of Mages when Bethany was trained by my father in our own home.” Turning again, she paced in the other direction and continued her tirade.

Fenris wandered to the bed and sat down on the edge. His head felt unusually heavy, and it was difficult for him to keep his eyes open. He watched as Hawke paced the room, but he knew there was nothing that he could say that would help. It had always been that way. Her fierce independence made it nearly impossible for him to offer support or comfort, because in some way, he believed that she really didn’t need him. She was an iron tower set upon the pinnacle of a mountain: nothing and no one else was necessary for her safety or her success. Sighing, he fell back against the pillows, the rise and fall of Hawke’s voice slipping into the background as he fell asleep.

It was night-black when he awoke later and looked around the room. He didn’t remember walking back into his own chamber, but that must be where he was: Hawke wouldn’t have allowed him to stay with her. Lifting one hand, he realized that he was still dressed in his armor, and he sat up, removing the pieces and letting them slide to the floor beside the bed. He would have to put them back on in the morning anyway. It was easier this way.

Yawning and dressed only in his underclothes, he slipped between the sheets, turning on his side away from the pale light of the new moon that was filtering into the room from the open window. He stretched his arm out to pull one of the other pillows toward him, when his fingers brushed against the soft skin of someone who was sharing his bed.

His muzzy brain told him that it was all right: Zevran was just being generous and sharing his bounty with friends. And maybe it was all right for this one night. All right for him to accept this gift of companionship. All right for him to ease his burning ache for Hawke without her knowing anything had happened. 

He slipped closer to the body next to him and slid one arm around the narrow waist. Reaching up, his hand grazed the swelling curve of a rounded breast. He inhaled deeply, grateful that his bed partner was female, and stilled, confused by the fragrance of spice and Harlot’s Blush that filled his nostrils. Someone he knew smelled like that. Right now, he wasn’t sure that it mattered who it was. He only knew that he liked it as he pressed his head forward to bury his face in that sweetly scented hair.

Pretend, his wine-soaked brain told him in the darkness. Pretend this is Hawke wrapped in your arms. Pretend that she never rejected your advice or chose that demon-addled mage over you. For this one night, let this be your Hawke and show her how you feel, as you’ve longed to for all these many years.

Nodding against his pillow, he slipped one arm under his bed partner’s head and the other over her hip, pulling her back against him and growling somewhere deep in his throat as he did. His fingers spread across her skin, digging into the softness of her belly and her breast as his lips trailed across the neck and shoulder in front of him. He heard a gasp, and he lifted his head so that he could take her earlobe between his teeth. His upper hand trailed down the curve of her hip and came back up to scoop one buttock into the cup of his fingers. 

The little sigh of pleasure that escaped her lips inflamed him, and he brought both of his hands up to fill them with the gentle curves of her breasts. Maker! who sends a whore to bed with their underclothes still on? he thought, cursing aloud into the darkness. “Take them off,” he commanded, his voice hoarse and low. “Take them all off. I want you naked beneath me.”

Pulling away, he stripped his drawers off his hips and threw them across the room. When he turned back to his bedmate, she was sitting up, fumbling with the ties to her breast binding. Reaching over, he stripped it from her body in a single, violent movement, pressing her back into the pillows and letting his hands race down her hips. Good, he though vaguely, she took those accursed drawers off first. Leaning forward, his eyes held tightly shut, he let his mouth close on the side of her neck, his teeth sinking into the hard muscle with desperate longing. Hawke, he reminded himself, pretend this is Hawke.

Purposefully, he pushed down the angry hunger that burned inside of him and gentled the brush of his fingers and his lips against her skin. With touches as soft as the steps of a butterfly, he traced the curves of her face, the fullness of her lower lip, and the arched grace of her ear. He tangled one hand into her hair, pulling it up to his nose so that he could inhale the flowery spice of her scent and then letting it spill from between his fingers. Tracing the path that one long lock took across her chest, his hand closed around the fullness of her breast, his thumb brushing gently across the tightened skin of her nipple. He let his lips trail across her chest and onto the soft contour of that same breast, taking the peak gently into his mouth and pulling at it with his teeth. Her hands flew up to wrap around the back of his head, and he felt her entire body tremble beneath him.

More, his wine-soaked brain told him. You would do more to Hawke. And he did. His lips followed his fingers across every inch of her flesh, brushing and licking, tantalizing and promising, until he could feel the unending shiver of anticipation running through her body. When he finally moved between her thighs, he used the utmost care, sheathing himself inside her by degrees, listening with pleasure to the gasping sighs that echoed throughout the room. He rose and fell with her until he heard the sudden intake of her breath and felt her quivering beneath him. Her fulfillment triggered his own, and he pressed forward, moaning her name into that spice-scented hair.

Sated, exhausted, he slid onto this stomach at her side, letting his head come to rest on her shoulder, one arm draped across her abdomen. He sighed gently and murmured into the darkness.

“My love.”


	7. Part One • Chapter Six • Jaya Hawke

Jaya was still trembling from Fenris’s lovemaking when his gentle whisper reached her ears. Smiling, she laced her fingers through his snow-white hair and pressed his head into her shoulder. He may have been exhausted and more that just a little drunk, but there was that old Antivan saying she had read somewhere: The wise man looks for truth in the dregs of his enemies’ wine glasses. She had the proof of his love — that last missing piece of the puzzle that had eluded her for so long, despite every vow that he had given her and the passion of the kisses that they had exchanged. She was certain now; but how would he feel in the morning?

Thank the Maker that he didn’t seem to be suffering from any dreams or pain from the lyrium of his tattoos. Not that she enjoyed the thought of his always being drunk when he bedded her, but if it overcame those debilitating side-effects, she was willing to accept it.

Because she was more than willing to accept him. Just as he was, with all the infuriating flaws and stubborn preconceptions that made their relationship so challenging — and so interesting. 

Unfortunately, he had put her in a very awkward position: how was she going to admit to him that she had left him sleeping in her bed with the hope that he would awaken and make love to her? Especially if he didn’t remember what had happened? Or thought that she had been someone else? She knew that he had said her name, but could that simply have been some kind of subconscious reflex? Maker’s breath, she needed help.

Luckily, Fenris started to snore softly against her shoulder in a few short moments, and she was able to slip from under his arm without awakening him. She scanned the room, looking for something that she could throw on quickly and finally decided to wrap one of the loosened sheets around her. The bed is a mess anyway, she thought, tucking the fabric under her armpits, and Fenris is too drunkenly exhausted to notice.

Her next problem was who to go to for help. She doubted that Isabela and Zevran were in the house: the pirate was very intent on finding someone who would lose his ship to her, and the assassin was the perfect source of information for that misadventure. That only left the Hero of Ferelden and her elf companion in the house.

Her sister and her husband, she reminded herself. She has seen the resemblance: Andraste’s flaming knickers, she could have been Bethany’s and Carver’s long-lost triplet, with her black hair and deep, brown eyes. Drawing in a breath, she tightened the sheet around her chest and tiptoed out into the passageway.

She raced across the upper entry hall and to the doors that lined the passage on the other side of the house. Stopping at one portal, she raised a hand and gently knocked.

Murmuring voices drifted beneath the door, and she saw a light suddenly rise up in the strip above the floor. The knob rattled, and her sister’s husband was standing in front of her, a sheet wrapped around his waist and gripped tightly in one hand. A Mabari pushed past him, his tail wagging furiously, his tongue lolling from one side of his mouth. She reached out and tugged at his ears.

“Do you think …” she asked in a small voice, “that you could … possibly … help me?”

“Of course,” the elf replied. “Come in for a moment.”

At the same instant, his wife called, “Who is it, Abelas?”

Stepping into the room, Jaya replied for herself. “It’s me. Your …” she hesitated, and then plunged forward, “… sister.”

“She needs my help,” her sister’s husband said, crossing to where his clothing was draped across a chair, while the dog returned to the rug in front of the fireplace. Hawked turned away, but not before she saw Rhoane climbing from the bed, naked.

“Maker’s breath!” she exclaimed. “You’re pregnant?”

Dragging her arms into the sleeves of a wrap, the Grey Warden looked accusingly at her husband. “You didn’t tell him to tell her?” When he shook his head in response, she threw up her hands, crying, “Useless! Useless, useless men!” Hawke saw her sister look over at her and shrug gently. “Surprise, Auntie Jaya.”

The little question in her voice made Hawke rush to her sister’s side and take her in her arms. She sighed when Rhoane hugged her back and whispered to her, “But I thought Grey Wardens couldn’t have children.”

Rhoane laughed and pulled away from her sister’s embrace. “Some day,” she said, “when we have a lot of time, we’ll tell you the story of why that might not exactly be true any more. But right now, I think you need us for something else.”

“Yes,” Jaya murmured, feeling a blush spreading across her cheeks. “You see … Fenris came to my room. He brought me some food, because I had missed dinner.”

Rhoane arched an eyebrow at her when she paused. “That was thoughtful of him,” she murmured.

“But he was a little drunk …” she continued.

“More than a little,” Abelas added. “I think that Zevran’s Antivan vintages are stronger than what he is used to.”

“So he passed out on my bed. Or fell asleep,” Hawke said. “And I was too tired to ask for another room, so I climbed up on the other side from him.”

Abelas had pulled on his trousers and was standing behind his wife with his arms wrapped around her waist. For some reason, their comfortable sensuality and her sister’s growing belly made her blush even more redly.

“Anyway,” she rushed along, “at some point he woke up and … and made love to me.”

“I begin to give him more credit for his intelligence,” Abelas said, pressing his lips against his wife’s hair.

Jaya sighed and combed her fingers through her brown hair. “Unfortunately, I don’t know whether he knew it was me or not, and I’m not sure how he might react if he awakens beside me. If he even remembers what happened.”

Rhoane reached out to touch her arm. “I’m certain he would be overjoyed to find himself next to you in the morning,” she whispered.

Hawke shook her head. “I don’t know,” she replied. “Our relationship is … complicated. We’ve hurt each other’s feeling more times than I care to count, and I used our closeness to force him to help me defend the mages at the Circle in Kirkwall.” She stopped and smiled wryly at her sister. “You might have noticed that he has a prejudice against mages.”

Nodding, her sister said, “I assume he belonged to a magister from Tevinter.”

“Yes,” she replied, crossing to the window to stare out at the firelight flickers on the water. “When I brought him to fight along side me in support of the mages’ cause, I forced him to abandon everything that his life had stood for until that moment. And his need to see every mage destroyed because they cannot be trusted not to turn to blood magic. I see that now. I had hoped …” She paused, shaking her head. “I don’t know. Maybe that it would make him see me as the pathway for his life in the future. But now he just seems confused and angry with me, because I let Anders live.”

“Anders?” Hawke stopped at her sister’s startled exclamation. “From Amaranthine.”

“Yes,” she replied. “He told me he had a cat there.”

Rhoane laughed gently. “Ser Pounce-A-Lot. I gave it to him. Will you tell me everything that happened … after we sort out your current dilemma?”

Hawke agreed. “Can you help me?” she asked, turning back to face her sister. “I don’t know what to do. And I am so …” she swallowed hard, “… so afraid of losing him, even though he has told me that he can’t endure life away from my side.” Hanging her head, she sighed and stared down at the toes that were peeping out from under the edge of the sheet. “I thought those might just be pretty words when he said them, considering we were about to face the entirety of the templar contingency in Kirkwall — and whatever demons had been summoned by the desperate mages. And we might not survive. But tonight …” she murmured, looking up into her sister’s eyes, “… he said my name and called me his love.”

The Grey Warden smiled gently back at her. “How do you think he might feel in the morning?” she asked.

“If he knew it was me,” Jaya replied, “he’ll probably feel guilty because he thinks he took advantage of the situation. And if he didn’t know, he either reflexively called my name or somehow thought that I was the one with him. Which might make him feel guilty for betraying me.” She tucked the sheet more tightly around her chest before she continued, “Either way, the brothers and sisters in the Chantry will have heard fewer pleas for forgiveness than I will tomorrow.”

“It’s probably best that he wakes up alone, then,” Rhoane said, securing her wrap tightly around her. “Let’s go. Abelas can carry him to his own room.”

Her sister’s husband held the door open for them, and she followed the Grey Warden back down the hallway to her own room. She saw Rhoane hesitate and stepped in front of her and opened the portal, leaning in to make sure that Fenris was not conscious. When she was certain that he was still asleep, she crossed to the bed and lit the night-candle on the stand beside it.

“His armor is on the floor,” she whispered to Rhoane, “so we’ll have to take that, too.”

Her sister nodded and crossed to begin picking up pieces of Fenris’s discarded armor. Jaya followed, scooping the heavier bits into her arms and moving out into the passageway. She crossed the hall and found the door to the warrior elf’s room, adjusting her burdens so that she could twist the knob in her hand. 

“You know where his room is,” her sister was saying, “and you knew where our room was?” She heard the question in the Grey Warden’s voice.

“Old habit,” she replied. “I always have to know where everyone is and the escape routes.” She laughed softly, “I had a lot of time to myself this evening, and my room was too small to pace in comfortably.”

“Do you know if he usually places his armor in a certain way?” Rhoane asked her, walking over to the side of Fenris’s bed where they had found his armor in Jaya’s room.

“I don’t know. Why?”

“Alistair always had a certain way to keep his things, so that they were easy to get back into at need. Does Fenris … what’s the matter, Jaya?

Hawke couldn’t remember being as shocked as she was in this moment. Her sister knew the king … well, of course she did! She was the Hero of Ferelden. She had traveled with her fellow Grey Warden and had him crowned king in order to protect their home country. She had faced the Archdemon and survived. We have a lot to talk about, she told herself.

“Sorry,” she said, “I just realized who you are and what that really means.” She looked quickly around the room. “We probably ought to just pile it up, in case he remembers taking this stuff off.”

They dropped the armor in some approximation of how they had found it and hurried back into Hawke’s room. She watched as Rhoane’s husband reached down to pull Fenris’s unconscious body over one shoulder, noticing how the flickers of the candlelight darkened the edges of lash marks across Abelas’s back. With her sister holding the doors, she led them to Fenris’s room, where the Grey Warden’s husband let her warrior elf slip gently from his shoulder and among his own bedding. Stepping up beside his sleeping body, she brushed the trailing strands of white hair away from his forehead and dragged the coverlet up across his hips.

“He really is something extraordinary to look at,” Jaya heard her sister whisper next to her. She could feel tears stinging her eyes, and she fought against the lump that was catching in her throat.

“He is extraordinary,” she replied, “in so many ways.”


	8. Part One • Chapter Seven • Fenris

Fenris turned in his bed and cursed when a ray of morning-bright sunlight flashed across his closed eyes. Throwing one forearm over his face, he rolled onto his back — in the shadows once again — and forced his lids to open. The underside of the canopy for the bed swam alarmingly in front of him, and he began to realize that his head felt like an anvil under the hammer of a dwarven smithy. He groaned and let his eyes slide shut again.

What had he done to himself now? he wondered, trying to remember why he felt like the muck that someone scraped off the bottom of his boot. He could recall that he had sat in the dining room with that mage’s husband, listening to him go on about visiting Hawke and drinking some of the exceptional wine that Zevran had thoughtfully provided for them.

There was something else about Zevran. It buzzed through the thick fog of his thoughts while he struggled against the pain of the pounding in his head. Warm, welcoming Zevran … always so kind and generous …

He bolted to a sitting position, suddenly moaning and gripping his head between his hands as the bed threatened to upend itself. Zevran! Fasta vass! He opened his eyes slowly, pressing his palms against his temples. The sheets lay in a disarrayed rumple across the bed, but the other pillow was empty. He slumped forward, his sorrow weighing on him like a too-heavy cloak: it had been a fantasy of his wine-addled brain, just as he knew it must have been. And now he had betrayed Hawke again, with a woman whose name he might never know and whose face he had never seen. Groaning, he swung his feet over the side of the bed, feeling the soles brush against the armor that was lying in a disordered pile on the floor. What was he to do now?

He slid from the bed, his legs wobbling slightly as they struggled to bear his weight. Taking a few deep breaths, he steeled himself for the short walk to the bathing chamber, which he anticipated would be a nightmarish journey. But the pressure in his head had been surpassed by pressure in another portion of his anatomy, and he spurred himself into motion.

Relieved, he walked to the basin and noticed that someone had filled the pitcher with fresh water. Leaning forward, he poured the entire contents of the ewer over his head, gritting his teeth as the clod water spilled over his neck and down his bare back. That is what you get for betrayal, he told the sopping, red-eyed reflection in his mirror: pain and suffering. Everything that you deserve. He moved to shake his head as he had done a hundred times after wetting his hair, but then he thought better of it; instead, he raked his fingers through it, not caring how it would look when it dried. He replaced the pitcher on the table and walked back into his bedchamber to put on his armor.

Bending to retrieve the pieces was another matter entirely. It forced the aching pressure toward his forehead, making it seem that at any moment he would pitch forward onto the floor. He struggled for a moment, searching for his undergarments — which had disappeared he knew not where — and then piling all of his armor beside him so that he could relieve the vertiginous feeling bending over created. He found clean underclothes in his pack and started putting on his gear, but the buckles and clasps seemed to have evolved into elaborate puzzles that defied his ability to solve them quickly. Minutes passed, filled with inventive curses and deep breaths to increase his patience, until he was finally ready to break his fast.

The sound of barking and laughter rose up the stairwell as he descended, and he followed the noise. Opening a door at the end of the hallway, he found the rest of their party sitting around a table that was set in front of long, windowed doors — fully ajar — that were letting the brilliant morning sunlight spill into the room. He reached up to shield his eyes and stepped forward, only to collide with that mage, who was backing toward the door, dragging a Mabari.

“You boys need to take this outside,” she was saying to the hound until she walked into him. She looked over her shoulder and smiled. “Oh, good morning!”

“I beg your pardon, my lady,” he said formally, bowing slightly and stepping to one side. He watched as she threw the dogs’ toy out into the entryway. Both hounds pounded past them, one of them brushing against his legs and causing him to sway. He felt someone wrap hands around his arm and looked down into the deep, brown eyes of the mage.

“Let’s get you some breakfast,” she said to him, leading him to a chair that faced away from the windows and was shaded by the support between two doorways. She hovered at his side for a moment, recommending that he start with some toasted bread and placing a slice on the plate in front of him. “You should call me ‘Rhoane,’” she whispered, slipping her hand into his and squeezing it, despite the spiked sharpness of his armor.

Squinting down the table, he saw that Zevran and Hawke were sitting beside each other, and he heard the assassin saying, “It is all in the dosing, of course, my dear Champion of Kirkwall. When diluted, some poisons can become equally potent sleeping agents or pain relievers.”

The mage had wandered down the table and reseated herself between her husband and Jaya — her sister, Fenris reminded himself. Somehow, at some moment of the night or morning, the two women seemed to have reconciled; they shared the table easily and laughed gently with each other.

“Ah,” he heard Zevran saying. “I will demonstrate.” He motioned for Hawke to follow him and crossed to a cabinet on the opposite side of the room from the sun-bright windows. He tried to focus on the bread on his plate as they conferred together about poisons, but his stomach was roiling unpredictably. Placing his elbows on the table, he lowered his head into his hands and closed his eyes.

It was the smell of spice and Harlot’s Blush flowers that brought him back to the present, and he sat up straight in his chair to find Hawke bending over beside him. She placed a small cup next to his hand and said, “Drink this. Zevran says it will help.” She stayed beside him, and their eyes met. Without looking away, he raised the cup to his lips and downed the liquid in one long swallow. Jaya nodded and returned to her chair.

Venhedis, that scent! It drifted into his memory, bringing back the sensation of tracing one long lock of hair down to the tender softness of a woman’s breast. Some other woman, not his Hawke … or maybe the Hawke of his muzzy, wine-laced brain, the Hawke he found only in his dreams and the darkness of his single nighttimes. He picked up the toast from his plate and took a small bite. Encouraged by the ease with which it settled into his stomach, he looked at the plates arrayed across the table and began selecting servings from the ones that appealed to him the most.

Zevran left them, saying that he had responsibilities with the Crows and that he would return in the afternoon. He also reminded them that Isabela would join them for lunch after she finished some work on her latest acquisition. The sisters chatted together over family matters until the mage and her husband rose, saying that they would take both of the Mabari for a romp in the city.

“And we won’t let them bring anyone home,” the Grey Warden called to Hawke from the threshold, her fingers intertwining with her husband’s.

“I — what?” Hawke called after them, but they had already closed the door behind them.

Being alone with her was the last thing that he wanted, so Fenris hurriedly stuffed the last of his food into his mouth and rose from the table. He was crossing to the door when her voice stopped him.

“Fenris,” she said just loudly enough so that he could hear her. “I need to talk with you.”

“Can’t this wait, Hawke?” he asked her, running his fingertips across his forehead. “I have … things to do.”

She rose from her chair and turned toward him. There was something different about her, but he couldn’t put his finger on what it was: the added air of confidence? The little smile that danced across her lush lips? He knew that he shouldn’t answer her summons — that he had damaged their relationship beyond any means that existed to repair it — but he couldn’t help himself. He returned to her side.

“There’s something that I need to give you,” she said, reaching down into the seat of her chair. She drew some kind of fabric up from between the arm and padded cushion and pressed it into his hands. When he unfolded it, he realized that it was the underclothes that he had been wearing yesterday — the ones he had torn from his body and flung across the room in the depths of the night.

“Where ...?” he mumbled, his brain struggling against the ache — which had lessened considerably — and the hope that had blossomed in his heart.

She met his eyes steadily, and he could see the honesty behind every word that she spoke. “In my chamber. I didn’t find them until after we had moved you back to your room.”

“Then …” he looked away, briefly, unable to bear the mirrored reflection of his own hope in her eyes. And then he couldn’t bear not to see it. He locked his gaze with hers again and continued. “Then it was you. The entire time.”

She simply nodded, and there was nothing else that he could do: he swept her up against his chest and kissed her. He kissed her for all the days that they had spent apart and all the hours together when he had longed to touch her. He kissed her for the misunderstandings and the fights and the quiet moments when she had listened to his stories. But most of all, he kissed her because he would never let her go. Never again, he vowed to himself as he listened to her soft gasps of pleasure.

“Jaya,” he whispered against her ear when their lips finally broke away from each other. “Why didn’t you say anything then?”

He heard her sigh and pulled back from her so that he could look into her mist-grey eyes. “I was afraid,” she said, looking away from him to the fingertip that was playing with one of the sharp edges of his armor. “I thought you would be angry with yourself for taking advantage of me when you were so drunk.” She met his eyes again. “Even though I enjoyed it immensely.”

“Did you, my love?” he asked, bringing her hand up to his face so that he could press his lips into the palm. 

“Oh, yes, “ she said, smiling brilliantly. “I especially liked it when you said, ‘I want you naked beneath me.’”

He frowned down at her. “I said that?” When she nodded, he continued, “You’ll have to forgive me, but the details are all fuzzy. And can you forgive me for making love to that person in my bed, certain it was some whore Zevran had sent to me, but imagining the entire time that it was you?”

As answer, she wrapped her arms tightly around his neck and leaned forward to kiss him. He crushed her against him, and she responded by backing him against the table, her lips as demanding as they had been that first time in Kirkwall. He held her against him, unwilling to release her, unwilling to end this moment when everything seemed safely decided. But finally, she lifted her lips from his.

“I love you, Fenris,” she whispered.

He took her chin between his fingers and held her so that he could look into her eyes. “I love you, Jaya.”

She grinned, something wicked in the curving of her lips. “Good. Then could we find you something less … spiky … to wear?”


	9. Part One • Chapter Eight • Zevran Arainai

The elf assassin stepped over the refuse that lined the street that he was following to the major marketplace in Antiva City. The garbage was only a slight annoyance, because it was one of the things that made the town — his town, his home, his Antiva — what it had always been to him. Besides, it was better than the dog feces he had constantly been forced to step around in Ferelden. And he was grateful to be home. 

He had never been certain that he would be able to return to Antiva, after he had failed to kill the Grey Warden and declared that he was through with the Crows. But the Crows don’t let their members simply go, after investing so much time and effort in their training. As a result, he had spent the next years destroying one contingent of assassins after another, including some of the guild’s most skillful and experienced masters. At some point, the Talon of the Crows of Antiva had finally decided that their business had suffered enough and had arranged a secret meeting with Zevran. The elf assassin had come suspicious and prepared, and the Master had lost another important member of the organization: himself.

It had only seemed reasonable — at least that was what the Crows’ remaining masters said — that the person who could kill such a high-ranking member of their organization should replace him, and Zevran had reluctantly stepped into the role. Responsibility for anyone other than himself had never been his strongest character trait — even with the Grey Warden’s damnable influence — but he had recognized that it was important for the guild to rebuild as quickly as possible. Power vacuums in Antiva City would be deadly for more people than just the Antivan Crows.

The skip of a rock across the surface of the street caught his attention, but he didn’t react overtly. Instead, he strolled casually to a knee-high wall that separated a small mansion from the street and placed one booted foot on it. He played with the leather of his shoe, using the pretense of a stone to look back up the street, studying the shadows with quick, sidelong glances.

Finally certain, he placed his foot on the pavings and turned back the way he had come. Crooking his finger toward the shadows, he waited until a scruffy elf-girl stepped out of a doorway and approached him.

“How long?” he asked the child.

The girl looked up at him with excitement and pride: Zevran remembered the days when he had looked to his own masters in the same way. “Six blocks, master,” the elf replied. “Perhaps seven.”

The Master of Antivan Crows could not bear to break the youngster’s heart by telling her that he had known almost immediately that he was being followed. After all, he admitted to himself, you have an overdeveloped sense of paranoia, Zevran. “It was the clatter of the rock that told me you were there,” the assassin said to the child. “Every footfall is a step to the completion of your mission. Place yours only exactly where they are needed.”

“Yes, master,” the girl replied. “I was sent to tell you that Mino will meet you in the marketplace with a message.”

Zevran nodded and shooed the girl away, knowing that she would return to one of his many safe houses in the city. As much as the guild told the tale that the Master of the Crows of Antiva lived in that large mansion overlooking the harbor, it was a tale only. Zevran actually kept dozens of rooms in alehouses and inns throughout the city, and a number of ladies — and a few gentlemen — of all stations of life were more than willing to welcome him into their beds. And provide him with an unending stream of gossip. With his extensive network of spies, he was more than adequately informed about the public and private lives of those who believed that they wielded the power in Antiva.

He entered the city’s central plaza and quickly reassessed the positions that offered him the most cover and which would guarantee an archer a clear shot at him. He wandered among the market stalls, eyes constantly in motion, ears alert to the slightest noise. It might not be the safest way to conduct his business as the Talon of the Antivan Crows, but it was better than being a still target in that massive mansion. Besides, the vendors in these stalls were some of his best sources of information, bought and paid for by the Crows.

“Have you seen the quality of this silk, messere?” a vendor called out to him as he started to pass the stall. “None like it anywhere else in Antiva. Direct from Orlais. The color of glittering jewels.”

Stepping closer to examine the cloth, Zevran suggested, “It is a cloth like many others. I have seen more than its equal in other shipments from Orlais.”

“Not of this quality, messere,” the vendor continued. “Even the Divine herself has remarked on its silken texture, the luminescent shimmer of its surfaces.”

“The Divine herself?” Zevran replied, thoughtfully running the fabric between his fingers.

“Indeed, messere,” the merchant said, unrolling another length of silk for Zevran to study. “The Divine called it more finely crafted than the stonework of the dwarves of the ancient thaigs.”

Zevran shook his head. “Surely this is an exaggeration. It is only fabric after all.”

“Ancient thaigs! Her words were reported to me directly by her own personal body servant.” 

Looking up, Zevran met the cloth-dealer’s eyes. “And how many yards of this exceptional silk did the Divine purchase for her wardrobe,” he asked idly.

The merchant smiled broadly. “Oh, not yards, ser. Bolts. Three of my most intricately woven bolts of fabric, to be fashioned to her particular orders by the tailors and those seamstresses who work throughout the daylight hours.”

“I see,” the assassin replied. “Perhaps I have underestimated the value of this fabric. How much for the bolt?”

The merchant appeared to size him up for a moment. “I have heard that thirty would be fair for my wares here in the city. I do understand that Antivan silks are considered an equal to anything from Orlais. Although, of course, this is not true in the case of my merchandise.”

Stepping back, Zevran placed his hands on his hips and studied the spill of cloth across the vendor’s table. He leaned in more closely again, running the silk between his fingers and leaving the coins that he had slipped from his purse between the folds of the cloth. “No, no,” he said, drawing away. “It is too much. And, as you say, Antivan silk cannot be rivaled by anything from Orlais. Perhaps you will have something that will interest me on your next visit to Antiva City.”

He walked away, waving at the merchant over his shoulder as the vendor continued to call to him for a few moments. With casual grace, he found a place against a wall where he could lean, safely out of the sight lines of any archers. He quickly reviewed the information that he had just received from the cloth merchant — one of his most trusted informants with connections in Kirkwall and Orlais.

From what the merchant had learned from his intimate relationship with the Orlesian body servant, the Divine of the Chantry, the White Divine, had ordered an expedition into an ancient dwarven thaig, an expedition which had left Orlais no more than three weeks ago — as indicated by his measure of bolts instead of yards. The group was made up of templars — the needle-wielding tailors — and members of the Chantry — those seamstresses who wore the symbol of the sun upon their robes. The number of members to the group — as indicated by the price of the cloth and the prevarication that compared his cloth to that of Antiva — was somewhere around thirty, but the merchant could not be certain.

“Spare a coin, ser?” A rag-clad urchin stepped in front of him with his hands cupped together. Casually, Zevran swatted the child away — but not before he had nimbly snatched the folded scrap of paper from inside the bowl of the boy’s hands. He pretended to curse the youngster while he scuttled away, watching as Mino swiftly blended in with the milling crowd around the stalls. He hoped that the nobles examining the wares in the marketplace had come with a mind to purchase what caught their fancies: if so, Mino would return to today’s safe house with a very tidy profit, and he deserved it.

He strolled across the plaza to another secure, secluded corner and opened the folded piece of paper. After studying the contents, he leaned forward and slipped the note discretely into his boot. Standing straight again, he started toward one of the exits from the plaza. There was more information waiting for him, and it was time to retrieve it.

Unfortunately, his overdeveloped sense of paranoia was telling him that all of this information had something to do with the Grey Warden — and perhaps her sister. And that all of it was bad.


	10. Part One • Chapter Nine • Rhoane Amell

Rhoane sat in a chair in the “unused room on the left side of the staircase,” her feet tucked beneath her, her husband sitting on the arm with one of her hands wrapped securely his. Her sister and Fenris were seated together on a small couch, but they had yet to acquire the ease of a relationship that was well established: the elf’s arm rested across the back of the sofa, but his fingers did not coil around Jaya’s shoulders; and her sister sat with her hands folded in her lap. Rhoane could see that she occasionally pressed the knee closest to the elf against his leg, as if to be certain that he was still there. At least her sister had managed to get him into some softer clothing that was more appropriate than a suit of armor for a mansion parlor. She smiled to herself and rested her head against the lean, warm strength of her husband. They will learn, she thought.

Isabela was telling them the story of her latest project of conquest and acquisition: a sweet little brigantine that she had determined was languishing in the possession of the wrong captain. “She’s just one of those fancy pieces that needs a woman’s touch,” she was saying. “You can tell by the way she’s just idling there in the water. With me at the helm, that little beauty will fly!”

“Yes,” Fenris said, “but you’ll have to actually be at the helm first, Isabela. And you haven’t convinced any of us that it’s more likely to happen than it was last night.”

“It will happen, lovely,” she said, pacing carefully in front of the fire, gingerly avoiding the Mabari who were sleeping on the hearthrug like a pair of stone andirons. “Unfortunately, I may have to ask for some help. The captain was a little … resistant … to my flirting. Not that I played every card in my hand, of course, but it’s not at all the kind of response that I’m used to.” Rhoane heard the door click just as the pirate was saying, “I was thinking that Zevran might be a little more successful.”

The elf who had just been memtioned entered the room, casually crossing to their little group. “Of course I would be more successful, my dear Isabela. With my long list of talents and the resources at my disposal, I can acquire almost anything. What were you thinking that I could do for you?”

One of Isabela’s hands came up to play with the discs of the golden necklace that hung around her throat. “Oh, I just thought that you could seduce the captain of the Bloody Venture, and then I could blackmail him into giving me his ship.”

“Is that all?” the assassin asked, taking another chair by the fire. “Beside the fact that the Talon of the Crows of Antiva couldn’t stoop to such a misadventure, this plan seems a little coarse, even for you, my dear Isabela.”

“It was the quickest way I could think of to get back out to sea where I belong,” she answered. “I’ve been on dry land much too long, Zev.”

“I completely agree with you,” the assassin said, looking down at his long, tapered fingertips. “I am very much afraid that you have started walking — how shall I put it? — like a Ferelden matron.”

“Say that again,” Isabela growled at him, “and I personally gut you and string you up from the nearest mast. And then I can become the Talon of the Antivan Crows.”

“And leave the sea behind to walk with an even more matronly gait?” Zevran teased. “Isabela, the hearts of every sailor on the Amaranthine Ocean would break into many small pieces if you failed to raise your sails again. But I’m afraid that I will have to say ‘no.’”

“Take Brute with you,” Jaya said, leaning forward. Both of the Mabari raised their heads, but Noble, Rhoane’s hound, laid his back down almost immediately. “Varric says that he plays a mean hand of diamondback. Think what it would mean for your captain friend to lose to a dog.”

“And a Ferelden dog at that!” Isabela crowed. She turned to consider the hound near her feet. “Do you really think he could do it?”

Fenris nodded, saying, “He could. You will have to remind him about his tells occasionally. His tail seems to have a mind of its own when he has a good hand.”

“Wouldn’t any man believe that he could beat a dog at cards?” Hawke added as if to finalize the plan.

Isabela laughed and agreed, and soon she and both of the Mabari — Noble being sent along as a distraction if anything went wrong — had wandered out of the room.

Rhoane was still hoping that her hound didn’t pick up any bad habits when Zevran interrupted her thoughts. “As much as I wish her and the Mabari great good luck, there is something else that I must bring to your attention,” he said, slipping a folded paper from his boot and handing it to Hawke. “This is the message that Isabela and Fenris found among the bodies of those bandits you encountered. As you suspected, it was a code, but the Antivan Crows would be nothing without an expert code-breaker or two.”

“What does it say?” Rhoane asked. She could see the worry in Zevran’s face even beneath the unshakeable, calm mask that he always wore. Hawke didn’t reply; she simply read the paper and extended it to her sister. Quickly, she scanned the decoded message.

“What is an ‘ancient dwarven thaig’?” she asked.

“No!” Fenris exploded, rising from the couch and pacing away from them down the length of the room. “Not again. Never again. It should be the dwarves’ problem now.”

“What does it say, ma vhenan?” Abelas whispered close to her ear.

“‘You are commanded by her Grace, the Divine of the Chantry of Orlais,’” she read, “‘to render whatsoever aid the bearer of this missive shall require during his inquiry. Anyone withholding information about the Deep Roads, the death of the Knight Commander of the Templar garrison at Kirkwall, or ancient dwarven thaigs shall be summarily executed. By order of her Grace … this day …” Rhoane looked over at her sister curiously. “I hate so many dwarves. Why does it always have to be dwarves?”

Hawke was shaking her head. “They’ve caused me more than my fair share of trouble, too, Rhoane. But that ancient dwarven thaig was the worst.”

“The worst?” Fenris growled, pacing to the sofa and standing with his hands braced on the back. “We were abandoned there by Varric’s brother and then had to fight our way through darkspawn and dragonlings to return to the surface. If you will remember, that’s where you had to sacrifice Bethany to the Grey Wardens.

“I saved her life,” Hawke retorted heatedly.

“Twice more we were forced to deal with the evils that the relic that Bartrand found unleashed in Kirkwall. Not to mention that it possessed the Knight Commander and may have inflamed the mages into blood magic …”

“Well, when you put it that way,” Hawke said, “it seems that ‘worst’ might be an understatement.”

Fenris pushed off from the back of the couch and sliced his hands through the air in a gesture that Rhoane interpreted as meaning that he was giving up. Turning away from them, he perched on the back, his arm folded across his chest, his brow thunderous.

“There is more,” Zevran said, his fingertips steepled together near his chin. “A reliable source has told me that the Divine has also sent thirty or so templars and members of the Chantry to scout for this same thaig. I also understand that this expedition left Val Royeaux three weeks ago. I don’t know where this thaig is, but could they be there by now?”

“No,” Hawke said certainly. “First, they’d need to find an entrance to the Deep Roads. The most reliable place to get that information that would be among the dwarves of Kal-Sharok — who are very unlikely to give up any of those secrets. Or they could get from the Grey Wardens, who should be in the Deep Roads anyway, cleaning up the remnants of this last Blight.”

“They could travel to Weisshaupt for maps,” Rhoane suggested.

“And then it is more than a week straight into the depths to reach that accursed place,” Fenris added. “It might be possible to surpass them or at least intercept them. But we can’t use the entrance near Kirkwall, because you at least had the good sense to destroy that one after the last time. Therefore, we have no way into the Deep Roads ourselves.”

“You’ll have to excuse me for a moment,” Rhoane said, rising from her chair and walking with seeming calm from the room. She hurried up the stairs into her rooms and found the pack that she had hidden under the bed. Without thinking twice about it, she dragged it from its place and returned to the parlor. When she entered the room, Fenris and Jaya were arguing vehemently with each other.

“… have a responsibility to protect …” her sister was saying.

“You are not culpable in this!” the warrior elf growled back at her. “The expedition was Bartrand’s, not yours. Whatever evils have resulted, they are problems that he should deal with.”

“You expect an insane man to return to the place that made him that way?” she questioned. Fenris frowned and looked away, shaking his head. “Varric will have heard what’s going on, but he and Bianca can only do so much. He’ll need time to put together a group, if he decides that he needs to do anything at all. I’m the person best positioned to deal with this.”

Fenris looked around the room, appealing to the others with his eyes. “Phaugh,” he exclaimed, throwing himself back down onto the couch to stare angrily into the fire.

“I might be able to help,” Rhoane said, carrying her pack to a large desk that occupied the opposite side of the room from the fire. Lifting the bag, she shook the contents out onto the flat surface and began sorting through them.

Her friends crossed the room to the desk, and Jaya came up on the opposite side from her. She idly picked through the items. “A slipper?” she asked, holding the shoe in her hand. “Why do …?”

“It was part of my court robes for Anora and Alistair’s coronation and wedding,” the Grey Warden replied. “I kept it as a remembrance.”

Abelas came up next to her and started putting items that she had placed to one side back into the pack. “It could be useful,” she continued, pushing scrolls, books, and vials out of her way. “If Fenris can’t come with us, he can take it to Alistair … Oh, there it is!”

She pulled a folded piece of heavily waxed paper up from among the scattering of items and tucked it under her arm. With one efficient sweep, she scooped everything that she didn’t need back into the pack that her husband was holding open. She watched as her sister tossed the forgotten slipper back on top of the other things.

Taking the paper from under her arm, Rhoane spread it across the desk: it was her personal map of the Deep Roads and all of the Grey Warden’s known entrances, which she had received when she became the Commander of the reclaimed post in Amaranthine. The others crowded more closely around the desk, looking down at the clearly defined roadways both above and below the earth of Thedas.

“If you could show me, Jaya,” she said to her sister, motioning for her to come around beside her, “which entrance you used and where you believe the thaig is, we should be able to locate an alternative route.”

Hawke laughed and moved to stand beside her. “Where were you six years ago when we needed these options? You could have saved everyone a lot of trouble.”

“Denerim, maybe,” Rhoane replied. “Or Amaranthine. Still completely useless to you anyway. I might not have had this until after we had settled things more firmly at the Warden outpost; and I’m not really sure when the seneschal gave it to me. I just remember packing it when I left for the Tower, because I didn’t know then whether I would have to travel into the Deep Roads or not.”

“Here,” Jaya said, pointing to a gateway icon near Kirkwall that was marked on the map. “We took this entrance and followed it … this direction. And then down for a week at least.”

“Maker take it,” Rhoane said. “I can’t write on this, because it has been sealed with wax to keep water away from the surface. Zevran, do you have a paper and pen?”

While the assassin gathered what she wanted from the desk, Rhoane crossed to the window, motioning for the others to follow her as she did. When they had gathered there, she pressed the map against the clear glass and asked Abelas and Fenris to hold it in place. When Zevran approached her, she took the paper and placed it over the portion of the map they had been discussing. He held the inkwell for her as she dipped the pen and started sketching on the paper overlaid on the map.

“What are you doing?” Jaya asked her.

“I used to copy spell patterns like this in the Tower,” the Grey Warden replied. “We needed to memorize them so that we could be certain that our energies were channeled properly before we sealed them. We should be able to approximate where the thaig is and determine if there is another entrance near by. So you say you started in this direction and then down for a week. Was it straight down or in a certain direction?”

“Maker, it’s so hard to tell under all that rock!” her sister exclaimed. “But I would say that our pathway downward led to the northwest slightly.”

“Yes,” Fenris agreed. “But not by a large degree.”

“And then you were directly in the thaig?” Rhoane asked them.

“No,” her sister responded. “We set camp, and some of us scouted ahead. Toward the north, I would say.”

Rhoane nodded. “If we say that your camp was placed in this area, that would mean …” she paused, studying the lines that were visible because of the light shining through the map and the light paper overlaid on it. She pressed the parchment more firmly into the wax and drew the small knife that she carried at her waist. Using only the point, she sliced away the excess from the small inset that she had made. Thanking the elves, she carried the map and its added paper back to the desk and spread it across the surface.

“We should be able to enter the Deep Roads here,” she pointed to a gateway marked on the map, “and follow the major thoroughfare to this decline that leads deeper into the earth. The connection to this ancient thaig should be somewhere in this area.” She moved her finger to indicate the space on the map and looked up at the faces ringed around the desk. Except for her husband, they were all frowning at her — even usually impassive Zevran.

“What did I say?” she asked, confused. “What is it?”

“My dear friend,” the elf assassin replied, “you said ‘we.’”

“Well, of course I did!” she exclaimed. “Beside the fact that Jaya is my sister and I should be there to help her, I still am a Grey Warden. The evils of the Deep Roads are my responsibility more than hers. And I’ve probably had more experience there than any of you.”

Their host snorted, and she responded, “Except maybe you, Zevran. But I wasn’t assuming that you’d come with us, because of your own responsibilities to the Crows.”

“This is true,” he answered her, “and I would be forced to refuse. The timing is importune, as I am still struggling to rebuild much of our talent. But I believe that we are all questioning your decision for another, very important, factor.”

Rhoane frowned and shook her head. “What would that be?”

“Maker’s breath,” Jaya exploded, “have you forgotten that you’re pregnant?”


	11. Part One • Chapter Ten • Jaya Hawke

Jaya turned restlessly beneath the coverlet of the bed she was now sharing with Fenris, trying to find a position that would let her finally fall asleep. Despite being exhausted from her long day — and the reduced amount of sleep she had had the night before — her mind was whirling as she replayed all of the options that they had discussed over dinner. Nothing was clear: every pathway was clouded by the obscurity of what if and just in case. And despite her warrior elf’s intense lovemaking, she was still very much awake. It was maddening.

Shifting again, she tugged at the sheet and felt it give way from its mooring at the corner of the bed, dragging away from Fenris’s body beside her. She sat up, cursing under her breath, and tried to toss the coverlet back over him. His hand struck out in the darkness and grasped her wrist.

“Be still, Hawke,” he muttered, pulling her arm so that she was forced to lay her body across his, her breasts crushed against his side.

“Maybe we should just leave now,” she suggested, “if my sister is going to be so stubborn about this.”

“Stubborn?” he questioned, running his fingers through her unbound hair. “If I didn’t know that she’s your older sister, I would swear she learned stubborn from you.”

She opened her mouth to retort, but Fenris pulled her forward with the hand that he had placed at the back of her head. He kissed her lazily, his lips lingering against hers for long, tender moments. When he released her mouth, she let her head fall against his chest.

“So you don’t think we should leave without her?” she asked softly.

Fenris let out a little, scoffing laugh. “You should take more clues from Abelas, my love. He knew from the moment she laid out the plan that she had chosen. And as much as you, Zevran, and I told her that she was making the wrong decision, he remained quiet on the subject the entire time.”

“Maybe he’s just waiting until they’re alone to talk some sense into her.”

“I give Abelas credit,” he replied, running his fingertips down her spine, “for enough sense to know when to keep his mouth shut.”

Jaya growled. “Your being reasonable about this isn’t helping.”

He laughed, his chest shaking beneath her. “Neither is your stubbornness.”

She pulled away from him, sitting up on the bed and dragging her knees up into the circle of her arms. “I just … I won’t be able to stand it,” she whispered into the darkness, “if she should lose her life or the life of her child because of this. It’s my father and mother’s grandchild there, and neither one of them lived to see it.

“She was serious,” she hurried on, “when she said you could take the slipper to the king of Ferelden. There’s no slavery there, so you would be a free man. And she’s certain that Alistair would be able to find a purpose for you there. You could stop following me and being forced to protect mages.”

“But I like following you,” he said, sitting up beside her and pressing his lips into her naked shoulder. “I am committed to you no matter what pathway you choose. I told you that once in Kirkwall, and I will tell you it again here.”

“I just …” she muttered, the specter of loss looming before her again.

“Perhaps you should focus on keeping her alive instead then.”

“It would be so much easier if she would just listen to reason,” Jaya complained into the cool night air.

“The same could be said for you, my love,” Fenris responded. “The reasonable among us have given up this argument and are sleeping soundly. Except for me, of course, who is bedded with the most unreas- …”

Turning with all the speed of her thief-trained muscles, she pressed him back down into the pillows and slipped on top of him, her knees in his armpits. Leaning down, she kissed him passionately, demanding that he meet the level of her desire and feeling the flame burning brightly within her when he did. His hands came up to clasp her buttocks and crush her flesh between his fingers, bruisingly strong and breathtakingly certain. Holding her tightly against him, he sat up in the bed, allowing her to slip down onto his thighs. She lifted her lips from his to nibble on his throat and the long sweep of his ears.

“Unreasonable,” he muttered into her hair. “You’re expecting me to perform again after less than an hour?”

She giggled against his throat. “I have found evidence that I am not being at all unreasonable. Very hard evidence.”

“Festis bei umo canavarum, Hawke,” he groaned, bringing his mouth to meet hers. Their tongues danced together for long moments and then she finally pulled away.

“Wait,” she murmured, “I’ve heard you say that before. What does it mean?”

“It’s Tevene.” He trailed his lips across her throat, adding, “It means, ‘You will be the death of me.’”

Gurgling with laughter, she replied, “Well, I can certainly try.”


	12. Part One • Chapter Eleven • Rhoane Amell

Rhoane looked up as the door to the dining room opened and smiled at her sister who was crossing toward her. Filling a cup with tea, she waited for Jaya to take a chair and then handed it to her.

“Good morning,” she said brightly. “I hope you slept well.”

Hawke shook her head. “Not really,” she answered. “I’m not used to sharing my bed with anyone for an entire night.”

The Grey Warden laughed as a bright red blush rose up through her sister’s cheeks. She stepped in to lessen Jaya’s embarrassment. “It was difficult for me at first, too, especially after my little cots at the Circle Tower. Even thought Alistair and I were exhausted from fighting darkspawn, it still took me hours to drift off when we started sharing a tent.”

Jaya shook her head. “I keep forgetting that you are the Hero of Ferelden and that the king was your lover. Couldn’t you just stay my sister for a while?”

Laughing, the Grey Warden replied, “I’ll try. Maybe it’ll be easier when we’re in the Deep Roads.”

“Or harder,” Hawke answered. “You know it’s possible we’ll run into Bethany down there. It’s been bad enough that I’m the Champion of Kirkwall. I can’t guess what having the Hero of Ferelden as a sister will mean to her, too.”

“We’ll try not to introduce me as that first then,” Rhoane said. “Maybe just start with sister, work up to Circle Mage. If worst comes to worst, I can pull rank on her as the Commander of the Grey from Amaranthine.”

“Oh, I’d love to see that!”

They were laughing together when Fenris stepped into the room, and Rhoane called over to him. “Before you come any farther, could you go ask one of those urchins loitering by the front steps to come in and talk with me, please?” She watched as the elf turned on his heel and exited the room.

Jaya frowned. “What …? How did …?”

“I’ve been here a little longer than you have, “ Rhoane answered. “There are always three or four children near the steps of this house at any time of the day or night. I believe they’re some of Zevran’s new trainees, although he hasn’t confirmed that for me. But one of them separates from the others whenever Zev leaves the house and tries to follow him. They trail after us, too, when we’re out in the city.” Taking a sip of her tea, she continued, “The Mabari had great fun with them yesterday, trying to root them out of their hiding places when we were walking around the streets. I’m afraid that the two of them might think that the children are their newest toys.”

“Maker, I hope not!” Jaya exclaimed.

Fenris walked in at that moment, his fingers wrapped in the collar of a young girl’s ragged dress. She was struggling against him, pulling back in an attempt to escape his strong fingers. Rhoane gasped and rushed across the floor, falling to her knees in front of the youngster.

“They all seemed reluctant,” the elf was saying, “but I managed to catch this one.”

“Maker’s breath, Fenris,” the Grey Warden exclaimed. “I asked you to invite one of them in, not drag her by the scruff of the neck.”

Crossing his arms over his chest, he frowned down at her. She looked at him expectantly, but he did nothing in response. Rolling her eyes and sighing at him, she said, “You could apologize to her.”

“I —,” the elf started, but stopped when she frowned back at him. “Oh, very well. I apologize,” he said, bowing to the girl, “if I in any way startled or frightened you. If there’s anything within my power that I can do to make it up to you, you have only to ask.”

Rhoane smiled up at him and looked over her shoulder to see her sister attempting to control her bubbling laughter. She watched as the little face keenly evaluated the elf and his worth.

“What’s those white stripes on your skin?” she asked.

“They’re lyrium,” Fenris replied, dragging one sleeve up to his elbow so that the child could see more of his tattoos.

“Yeah? So what.”

“So what!” he exclaimed. “Do you know how much pain …”

“Fenris,” Rhoane interrupted him before he could unleash too much of a tirade upon the child. Looking into the girl’s face, she said, “The lyrium means that he can do things with magic. Would you like to see?”

The child nodded, and Rhoane watched as the elf sighed and brought his tattoos alight. Gasping, the youngster reached out and almost touched one of the shimmering lines of the lyrium power flowing through his body. Thinking better of it, she snatched her hand away.

“I can also rip the beating heart out of the chest of a grown man because of these,” Fenris stated blandly.

The Grey Warden watched as the child’s eyes grew to two times their normal size and her mouth sagged open. Stifling a laugh, she asked the girl to run and find Zevran or to send word to someone who could fetch the Talon for her. Nodding, the child crossed to the door; with her hand on the latch, she turned back to look at the elf again. “Mino tol’ me you was a dang’rous type,” she said, “but I thought he was just wantin’ to follow you all by hisself. Wait ’til he hears this!”

The girl ran from the room and soon the front door slammed behind her. Unable to control herself any longer, Rhoane sagged to the floor and started giggling. She heard her sister join her a moment later and laughed all the harder.

“Oh, Maker,” she heard her sister gasp. “Fenris, the object of hero worship. You’ll have adoring, terrified hordes of urchins following you through the streets now.”

Fenris crossed his arms over his chest again, but Rhoane could see the smile that was tugging at his lips. “As long as they’re terrified,” he said evenly.

Rhoane’s laughter redoubled, as did her sisters, and it was long moments before the mage was able to accept the hand that Fenris held out to her to help her to her feet. She smiled and thanked him, returning to her place at the table, still giggling occasionally at the memory of the little girl’s face.

Zevran walked in shortly after Jaya and Fenris had broken their fasts, her husband beside him. Rising from her seat, she crossed into Abelas’s embrace, wrapping her arms around his waist and laying her head against his shoulder.

“I understand,” Zevran said, looking over at the lyrium-branded elf at the table, “that I’ve the most frightful creature in all of Thedas living in the mansion.”

Rhoane and her sister burst into laughter again, the sound causing Zevran to smile at the two of them. When their merriment had subsided, Rhoane crossed to his side and said to the assassin, “Zev, we are going to need some counterfeited documents.”

“Counterfeit!” he exclaimed. “My dear Grey Warden!”

Smiling at him, she continued, “When you know what they’re for, you’ll understand why they will have to be faked. My sister and I both will be traveling with elves that we cannot bear to be separated from. In addition, we have no way of knowing where this journey will take us. Fenris has been a wanted fugitive from Tevinter and is undoubtedly known to most of the slave-catchers in the Imperium. And while my husband is in no way as infamous,” she smiled over at Abelas, “it’s possible that he may be wanted in the disappearance of his former master.”

“I see,” Zevran said.

“We’ll need documents — bills of sale or transfer of property, even gambling chits and a note of redemption will do — whatever you think will be most appropriate,” she said, “that will show anyone curious enough to demand proof that these elves belong to us.”

“Each of you, individually?” he asked.

“In the Imperium,” Fenris said, “it will be most appropriate for a mage to own both of us. If that’s where you are most concerned about us traveling.”

Rhoane sighed and nodded. “Then I should be listed on both documents.”

Hawke frowned. “What about me? Am I safe in the Imperium without being able to do any magic?”

“You are safest only as a magister,” Abelas said quietly.

The lyrium-branded elf added, “They won’t fear your skill, as much as they should. They only fear a magic that’s greater than theirs.”

Zevran said, “I’ll have a document prepared for your ownership of Jaya as well, in the case of an emergency.”

“No names, Zev,” Rhoane said. “Simple descriptions to match them, listed by sex, body frame, maybe eye and hair color.”

“I believe I have someone with the knowledge and skill to execute such documents,” the assassin replied. “However, it may take me a few days to have them completed.”

Reaching out, she placed her hand on her old friend’s arm. “Whatever you can do to speed up the process, Zevran,” she said, smiling sadly at him. “As much as I have I enjoyed our time here with you, we must be gone.”


	13. Part Two • Chapter One • Jaya Hawke

Shifting into the deep shadow created by the edge of a crumbled doorway, Hawke pinched the tip of her nose to keep herself from sneezing.  The rancid odor of the fathomless Deep Roads rose around her, making her stomach roil, too, with an intense desire to vomit.

Pressing the urge down, she tipped her head to one side and peered around the smashed rock. Fifty paces or so farther down the roadway, a group of darkspawn had gathered, but whether they were holding this position for others or planning to move forward, she couldn’t tell. Withdrawing her head, she slipped back the way she had come.

She met her companions around the a curve in the road and quickly communicated the situation to them. Equally as quickly, they were all ready: Fenris with his monstrous halberd in his hands; Abelas with his long bow unstrung; and Rhoane gripping the curve of her staff. The two Mabari were snarling fiercely, their noses already twitching eagerly at the scent of the coming battle. When she knew that it was time, she crept ahead again, always within the shadows, using the darkness to conceal her movements. When the light grew too bright to hide her any longer, she gathered herself and leaped behind the closest darkspawn, chopping one axe blade brutally into the back of the creature’s skull and sliding the other across its throat. At the same moment, Fenris charged, his weapon scything through the unprepared darkspawn in wickedly destructive arcs.

The creature to her left turned into an ice-bound pillar, still and frosted, and she stepped over to smash the frozen monster into tiny bits with the handle of one axe. She was about to move against the next darkspawn when an arrow sprouted from its eye, followed rapidly by one through its throat. The creature slumped to the ground, its blood seeping out on the rubble-strewn remnants of what had once been a great, underground highway for the dwarves. The hounds seemed to be everywhere, knocking their opponents from their feet and crushing limbs between their powerful jaws.

It was merely a scouting party or a group left to hold this crossing of the Deep Roads, so Jaya wasn’t surprised when her companions had killed the entire pack within minutes. What did surprise her was the sound that her Mabari, Brute, made: a low whine that he only vocalized when he was uncertain about something. She listened and heard a shifting, scuttling sound from the branching roadway where her dog was snuffling. She stepped toward the noise, following her Mabari’s nose down the partially collapsed access tunnel. As she strained her eyes into the darkness, she thought she saw the rubble shift and coalesce into … something, but the light was too dim for her to be certain. And I’ve spent too many hours in the Deep Roads, she thought: I expect a monster around every corner.

“What is it, Hawke?” Ferris murmured, stepping up beside her, his weapon gripped in both of his hands.

She shrugged. “Brute’s anxious, and I thought I heard something,” she answered, “but I can’t see anything here in the dark. Either we get some light or we ignore it.”

“Ignoring uncertainty is never the best course,” the warrior elf said, moving in front of her and farther into the darkness. She walked along behind him, her hand gripping her dog’s collar. Her eyes darted through the shadows, eager to locate any movement before it had resolved itself into something dangerous. Paranoid, she told herself, you’re just paranoid after so many days in the Deep Roads.

Fenris clipped his halberd back over his shoulder into its holder and turned to face her. Shrugging, she slipped her axes into their braces and walked to where her sister and Abelas were waiting. Brute trailed along behind them, stopping to look back over his shoulder and whine at the gloom.

“Did you find anything?” Rhoane asked.

Shaking her head, Jaya replied, “No. I thought that I heard movement in the darkness, but there’s nothing there.”

“And the pathway is collapsed,” Fenris continued. “It won’t provide us access to the thaig.”

Rhoane nodded and looked down the roadway. “How close do you think we are?”

“We’re on the correct level now,” Hawke replied. “That’s about all that I can be certain of at this point, especially since we had to come in on the opposite side from our original entrance. The darkspawn have been busy though: you can tell that many of these collapses are new. They’ve been trying to break through to the thaig for some reason.”

Her sister sighed and leaned her forehead against the frosty-cool gem at the top of her staff, letting her eyes slide shut. Jaya had been surprised so far at how resilient Rhoane had been throughout their hard days of travel and their skirmishes with the monsters of the Deep Roads. None of them had been taking it easy, she had to admit, determined to reach the thaig before the party that had been sent by the Divine. Looking over at her sister’s husband, Hawke lifted one eyebrow, trying to determine without saying a word whether her sister could go on. He shook his head in response.

“Should we try to make a camp near here, or continue?”

“We can move on,” Rhoane said, opening her eyes and sliding her staff over her shoulder. She started down the roadway. “I was just thinking about the darkspawn; trying to determine a motivation for their attempts to enter this thaig.”

Fenris moved off to take the leading position as they walked down the underground highway; Abelas trailed behind them. Rhoane continued her explanation. “I’ve found that some darkspawn can be completely rational beings, capable of reaching logical decisions,” she said.

“Really?” Hawke asked. “That hasn’t been my experience at all.”

“I know it’s unusual,” her sister replied, “but the darkspawn do have reasons for their behavior. During a Blight, they’ve responded to the calling of an Old God and located the source. There’s something … like music … in the call of an Old God.”

“I’ve heard that,” Jaya agreed.

“So what if,” Rhoane conjectured, “they’re hearing something else?”

Looking over at her sister’s worried frown, she added, “Like the song of an even more ancient god? A dwarven god?”

“I don’t know,” the Grey Warden replied. “And until we’re face-to-face with it, I’m not sure we’ll know either. I just needed to think about it for a minute — anticipating.”

“Hawke!” Fenris called to her from his advanced position. When her sister nodded, she trotted up to meet him.

“Tunnel.” He whispered against her ear. “Ahead on the right.”

Nodding, she moved into the shadows once again, stepping quietly into the darkness. As swiftly as she could, she crept down the branching roadway that Fenris had indicated. Looking back over her shoulder, she saw the warrior elf moving ahead down the main passageway of the Deep Roads, glancing in the direction she had gone with a wary protectiveness. She waved at him, a brief salute to tell him that she was all right, and crept away into the gloom.

The passage narrowed precipitously, both in width and height, and slanted away more deeply beyond the edge of the light that illuminated the cut from the Deep Roads. Jaya had to turn to one side and shimmy through the break in the rock so that she could scout the cut as it ran away from the main route. As she moved forward, she noticed that she could see more easily, because a glow was spilling up the opening from the opposite end.

A glow that was bright, bloody red and all too familiar.

Sighing as a sense of relief washed through her, Hawke walked along the steeply slanting throughway, pausing occasionally to let her eyes adjust to the growing crimson light and to listen for any signs of movement. The break finally ended on the flat, dwarf-carved floor of a hallway that was lined by a number of doors. It seemed as though the darkspawn had tunneled into a residence of some kind — perhaps a crafting guild hall or barracks for soldiers. She stepped onto the flat floor, picking her way carefully among the piles of rubble, and reached out to open one of the doors.

There was some kind of sleeping chamber on the other side of the portal, outfitted with a small platform carved from the native stone and a smaller, attached room for bathing. She looked around it briefly and then swung the door shut, hearing the click of the latch as it fell into place.

And then there was another noise, not near the room, but down the hall: the rattle and rasp of stone grating against stone. She tracked the sound, looking down the long row of doors, and she watched as the rough stones farther along the hall gathered together into creatures of jagged rock and some kind of magical binding.

The Profane.

She turned immediately, racing back up the cut and sliding under the overhangs of rock until she emerged back in the tunnel. Turning when she saw the light from the Deep Roads, she stopped and listened for the click of rock against rock that would mean that the Profane had followed her.

That sound, the sound that she had been dreading, rose up to her ears almost immediately. Reorienting herself, the dashed for the flat, openness of the Deep Roads, finding the rest of her party by sight and sound.

Because they were fighting again, too.

While she had been scouting, another group of darkspawn must have come along the highway. Abelas and Rhoane were raining arrows and fire into the group from a distance. The Mabari howled and charged, while Fenris swung his weapon almost tirelessly, slicing the monsters in as many vitally fatal places as he possibly could.

Hawke raced up to them and just before she leapt into the fray to help her warrior elf, she screamed, “Behind us!”

Even as she was flying toward the darkspawn in front of them, she saw her sister’s husband turn to face the threat from their rear. And then it was all a blur, her axes swinging through the crowd of flesh around them, separating arms from torsos and surrounding her, Fenris, and the dogs with a puddle of blood. She looked over her shoulder only once and saw that her sister and Abelas were reducing the number of Profane who had followed her up from the ancient thaig. Frost and fire alternately surged from her sister’s fingertips and her staff arced around her, equally as deadly as the magic that Rhoane could produce. Turning back to the pack of darkspawn, Jaya redoubled her efforts and the puddle at their feet turned into a pond.

She fell to one knee as she and Fenris battled the last monster, using the opportunity to slice the tendon on the back of the ankle closest to her. As the creature staggered on its uncertain legs, the lyrium-branded elf disconnected the head from the darkspawn’s shoulders and sent it flying against the wall of the Deep Roads. It struck the unyielding stone with a squishy thud and slipped down into the rubble.

Springing back to her feet, Hawke turned to help her sister with the animate rocks that were the Profane, but they lay in smashed and scattered piles of stone. Abelas was standing with his sword in his hand, having abandoned his bow when the Profane had drawn too near for distance combat, the Mabari flanking him like guardians. Her sister was squatting beside the smashed construction of one of the creatures, studying it for some reason. Hawke walked up to her side.  
“What are these?” the Grey Warden asked. “I’ve never seen them in the Deep Roads before.”

Hawke explained, “We first encountered them in the ancient dwarven thaig when we were trying to find our way back to the surface after Bartrand betrayed us. There was a monstrous one, but we really didn’t bother to find out much about it. We were … very eager to be out of the Deep Roads at that point.”

Rhoane was running bits of the shattered pieces of the Profane between her fingers. Frowning, Jaya continued, “It seemed like the monstrous one was possessed by a demon that fed on the hunger of the smaller Profane. Or maybe it fed on the darkspawn’s hunger.” She looked down the roadway that was lying ahead of them. “All I know is that we had to kill it to escape the thaig.”

“Of course,” the Grey Warden replied, standing up and brushing her hands on the   
legs of her trousers. “I was only wondering what they were made from, but it’s probably not important. I’ve seen that stone before somewhere, but I can’t quite remember where it was.”

“If you’ve found the Profane,” Fenris said, walking up to her side, “does that mean that you also found an access to the thaig?”

Hawke sighed, knowing that only part of their battle with the evil of this place was over. The harder part was about to begin. “Yes,” she answered her warrior elf. “That tunnel you pointed out to me led into the some kind of barracks or quarters for dwarves. But I disturbed the Profane before I had a chance to look around too much.” She whistled for her Mabari and started toward the tunnel. “But we have access now, so we should …”

Looking over her shoulder, Jaya saw that her sister was staring down the underground highway, her face intently focused on something that no one else could see. She retraced her steps and placed herself, shoulder to shoulder, beside her sister.

“What is it, Rhoane?” she asked.

Hawke cursed under her breath when her sister raced off down the Deep Road, swinging her staff from its brace. “Something’s coming,” she heard her sister call. Looking over at Fenris and Abelas, she started after the Grey Warden, hearing the two men fall in behind her. The Mabari raced past her in an attempt to catch up with Rhoane, but she reached the crossing before the others, skidding to a halt as an ogre raced around the sharp corner and onto the road in front of her. Jaya watched as she quickly changed her direction, cutting toward the other roadway and sending a bolt of frosty energy toward the darkspawn. The massive creature shrugged it off.

Ignoring Rhoane, the ogre lowered its head so that it charge back the way that it had come from, down the branching road that led away from the entrance that they had found to the ancient thaig. Just as Hawke and the others reached the intersection, Rhoane cast again, lighting the the area just in front of the monstrosity as it began its charge. As the creature crossed into the pattern of light and power, it was frozen in place, and the Mabari leapt at its legs, ferociously tearing into the toughened skin.

At that same moment, another person sprang into Hawke’s line of sight, a shield and sword flashing a reflection from the ever-burning lights of the Deep Roads. He propelled himself forward and onto the back of the incapacitated ogre, driving his sword between the monster’s shoulder blades and twisting it viciously. The creature died and the sudden lack of resistance to the spellwork caused its lines to collapse, allowing the huge body to flop to the roadway. The man — because Jaya could now see that the sword-bearing fighter was a man — braced himself as the body fell to the ground, retaining his footing and his position on the darkspawn’s back. He looked over at her, and she was suddenly certain that she had seen him somewhere before.

At the same moment, Rhoane moved out from the stone wall where she had taken her position and walked toward the road where the ogre had emerged.

And almost walked straight into the Grey Warden’s companion, her sister, Bethany.


	14. Part Two • Chapter Two • Bethany Hawke

She stood dumbstruck, staring at what she could only think of as reflection of her own face. Except for the style of the other woman’s hair and some marks of age, she would have sworn that she was staring at herself — or an image of her now-deceased mother. Jaya had found just such an image when they had retrieved their grandfather’s will: the engagement portrait that had been made before her parents had made it clear that Leandra would not be marrying the comte. She still kept the picture in her pack, as a reminder of all the things that her parents had sacrificed for each other. It softened the sacrifices that she had made in becoming a Grey Warden.

Bethany could see that the other woman was looking at her equally as measuringly, as if waiting for a sign as to how she should proceed. Slowly, her eyes constantly locked with her mirror’s own, she slipped her staff over her shoulder and into its brace. Her doppelganger did the same.

A snuffling whuff reached her ears, and she looked down to see Brute, her sister’s Mabari, gallop up to her side. He bounded around her gleefully and then pressed himself against her legs so that she could rub his head. She complied, squatting down to take him into her arms. Another hound crowded in close to them, butting his head against her shoulder and snuffing eagerly against her face. She laughed and scritched his chin, too.

“Bethany,” she heard her sister, Jaya, say softly. “We didn’t know whether you’d be in the Deep Roads now.”

“But you thought I might?” she replied, rising to stand facing the strange woman who looked so much like her again. “Is there a reason why you thought we should meet?”

Jaya frowned. “I …” she began.

“Bethany,” the man, the Warden-Lieutenant and her commander who had killed the ogre called over to her. “We must away.”

“Yes, Stroud,” she replied, starting over to his side.

“Wait!” Jaya said crossly. “We really do need to talk.”

“We must keep moving, if we have any hope of eluding them,” Stroud said, slinging his shield onto his back. “They are not so far behind us now. And this evidence will only convince them that they are on our trail.”

“I’m ready,” she answered him.

“Stand down,” the mirror-image of her said to the the Warden-Lieutenant. “I am the Commander of the Grey at the garrison of Amaranthine. If you have troubles, it is equally my duty to supply aid.”

“Commander,” Stroud said, nodding to the woman. “As much as we would appreciate help, we have no time to make any arrangement with you. We are pursued and must continue with all haste.”

“Wait!” Jaya said forcefully. “There are swarms of dead darkspawn leading away from here, so that will give them a false trail to follow. All you need to do is come with me, and we’ll be able to deal with all of this.”

Stroud was frowning at her sister, and Bethany saw him shake his head.

The other woman, the Commander of the Grey, stepped toward Stroud and said, “I don’t question your right to protect your own troops, sir; however I do ask that you trust us. We’re as much in need of support as you seem to be right now.”

Jaya waved her hand at all of them. “If you’ll follow me, we can get to a safe place that I’ve found. It’s away from the main road, and we may be able to block access from this side once we’re through.”

Bethany saw her sister move away from her and looked over at Stroud. He nodded at her and set off after Jaya. Two elves — one whom she had seen with her sister before — and the Mabari joined them. Her sister lead them down the underground highway and to a small tunnel that led away into the darkness. They had to duck under a broken fall of rock, but eventually then came out into a hall that was lined with doors and was illuminated by that bright, red glow that she had seen before. She sighed: as much as she didn’t want to be here again, she was in the ancient thaig. And it was where she and Stroud had meant to go the entire time.

“We need to block the passage from this side,” the Commander of the Grey was saying, looking back the way they had come. “Suggestions?”

“We cannot completely block the passage,” Stroud said, “in the event that there is no other escape to be found.”

Bethany considered the tight tunnel. “I could create a wall of ice to cover the opening. But that might point anyone to our location, if they were to bother to look.”

Her mirror image said, “If we were to use the rubble to create a rough wall across the opening, the stone could be frozen into place. It would appear as a wall, but it could be easily removed with an equal application of fire. And most people would dismiss the cold as simply an aspect of the stone.”

The two elves moved back up the tunnel, abandoning their packs and weapons in the ancient hallway. Stroud moved to follow them, but the Commander of the Grey reached out and laid her hand on his arm. She motioned with her head for him to follow her and stepped further down the dwarf-carved passage. They started conversing in low whispers.

“Sister,” Bethany said to Jaya, “who is she?”

She heard Jaya sigh deeply and frowned, certain that whatever her sister had to tell her would be bad. But so many moments of her life had been filled with bad news; she would be able to survive another.

Reaching out to take hold of her arm, Jaya said, “Her name is Rhoane Amell. She’s our older sister.”

“What?” Bethany blurted out, a little more loudly than she had intended. “Why …? What …?”

Her sister smiled at her. “I had a similar reaction,” she said, “except mine involved storming from the room. Rhoane is Mother and Father’s first-born: a daughter with magic. From what she tells me, she blossomed in ability right in front of a templar, and she was immediately taken to the Tower. She thinks that Mother said that her last name was ‘Amell’ in order to protect her and Father from further investigation by the Chantry.” Jaya smiled at her. “There’s more, but you need to be ready to hear it.”

“You may as well tell me everything,” Bethany replied. “It can only get so much more worse than the fact that our parents hid her from us for all those years.”

“Actually, she says that many families who have mages in the Circle Tower do the same kind of thing to their children,” Jaya said, looking down the hall toward the Stroud and the Commander of the Grey — their elder sister, Bethany reminded herself. “Change the child’s last name when they’re taken. Never make another attempt to see them. Losing that connection with family is one of the things that drives so many mages to take their own lives. But the other thing you need to hear doesn’t involved the Circle Tower so much. Rhoane Amell is the Hero of Ferelden.”

Bethany felt her mouth fall open. “But Mother always told us that the Hero of Ferelden was her cousin! She called her ‘Revka.’”

“I’m afraid that our Mother never — outgrew — that need to protect us all from what magic did to our family,” Jaya explained. “I have it from Rhoane’s own lips that she traveled with the other Grey Warden and gathered an army to fight the darkspawn. She made the deal that put the crown on his head, and she is the one who struck the blow that killed the Archdemon.”

“Maker’s breath!” Bethany exclaimed. “It was bad enough that I had to live in your shadow, but how do I live with a sister who’s the Hero of Ferelden. The Grey Warden who single-handedly ended the last Blight?”

Jaya shrugged. “The same way I do. You get to know her and realize that she’s just a person. A really amazing person.”

Bethany drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Is there anything else?” she asked.

“She’s pregnant.”

“That’s impossible. Grey Warden’s can’t reproduce,” Bethany said, shaking her head.

Jaya laughed. “That one she gets to explain to you. But she’s married to the elf with the red-brown hair. His name is Abelas.”

“Did you need me?” the self-same elf asked, stepping out of the darkness of the passage.

“I was just explaining some things,” Jaya said. “Abelas, this is my younger sister, Bethany. She’s a Grey Warden now.”

“I am please to meet another member of this family,” he said, smiling at her. “Rhoane and I had thought that we were alone together in this world. It gladdens my heart to know that is not true. Especially now.”

The other elf also came up to them and looked over at Jaya with a gaze that Bethany could only call possessive. And heated. As intrigued as she was by the news that she had a long-lost sister, the relationship between Jaya and this elf interested her almost as much. There seemed to be a lot for her to learn.

Abelas stepped into the hallway and called down to the Commander of the Grey. “Ma vhenan, we are ready for you.”

Bethany saw her elder sister reach out and lay her hand on Stroud’s arm, calling a halt to their discussion. She turned and approached them where they were waiting by the tunnel. When she had come abreast of their group, she stopped and looked over at Jaya. Bethany saw her sister nod.

The Commander of the Grey looked over at her and tipped her head to one side. “I’m sorry about how this had to happen … about our meeting like we did,” her elder sister said to her. “But I’m not sure any other way or time would have been better.”

“At least I can’t storm out of the room,” she laughed, giving Jaya a sidelong glance. “Not that you couldn’t order me to stay, being a Grey Warden Commander.”

“I told Jaya once that I could pull rank on you,” Rhoane replied. “I think it’s still something she really wants to see.”

Jaya snorted, and her elder sister smiled.

“First, however, we need to complete this barricade,” the Warden Commander said. “You said that you could build an ice wall across the opening. I’ve never actually created a barrier like that, but I could watch. I might be able to help after a little observation.”

Bethany reached for her staff and pulled it from the brace that held it strapped to her back. “All right,” she said. “Let’s get this done.”


	15. Part Two • Chapter Three • Stroud

In a kind of a fog, the Warden-Lieutenant, Bethany’s commander, stared after her as she walked up the tunnel. He had never counted on luck to get him through his encounters with the darkspawn and his other duties. But ever since he had met Bethany in the Deep Roads, he had begun to believe that her presence had made him one of the luckiest men alive. They had managed to get her back to their garrison before she was consumed by the Blight. She had survived the Joining Ceremony, a process that often ended more lives than it drew into service to the Grey Wardens. Then she had been assigned to his scouting group.

And now, just when they were running for their lives from a group of templars, they had encountered her sister — and not just one — but two sisters, one of whom had magic abilities that could probably protect her better than he ever could. And the other one was the Champion of Kirkwall. Once again, Bethany’s luck had placed them in the right place at the right time. By the Maker, it was uncanny.

He walked down the hall to stand beside the sister whom he had met before. “Champion,” he said in order to draw her attention.

“Please don’t call me that,” she replied, watching the gloomy tunnel with a small frown between her eyebrows. “It will be dangerous to develop the habit. Call me Hawke or Jaya. Whichever pleases you.”

“Hawke,” Stroud said. “The Commander of the Grey says that you are also here looking for the Red Thaig.”

Jaya nodded. “My expedition was the one who rediscovered that it was here, so I feel that it’s my responsibility to find a way to keep others out.”

Frowning, Stroud asked, “What others? We encountered a party sent by from the Chantry in Orlais …”

She nodded. “That’s why we’re here. The Divine sent a group to investigate the — what did you call it? —”

“The Red Thaig,” he replied. “For the lighting.”

“Appropriate,” she said. “Especially considering how much blood has been shed because of this place.”

Stroud crossed his arms on his chest and looked down at Bethany’s sister. He was a patient man: he could wait until she explained herself.

Her gaze measured him before she asked, “You’re not aware that the Knight Commander of the templars in Kirkwall was possessed by an artifact that was brought back from this thaig?”

“It’s not common knowledge, no,” Stroud replied. “We had gathered rumors when we were in the city at the time of the mages’ uprising, but nothing concrete.” He looked up the cut to where her sisters and the elves were shrouded in darkness. “Your sister said little when she returned to the Grey Wardens.”

Hawke nodded. “I told her not to implicate herself. She helped me in the battle, but it was important to me that she not be pursued as an agitator. Especially because she is a mage herself.” He saw her rub one hand across the side of her face. “Although, as I remember it, she told me at the time to mind my own bloody business because she could take care of herself.”

Stroud nodded slightly and said, “It was wise of you to tell her to hide her involvement. It may have made it easier when we encountered that group of templars who wanted to seize your sister and make her tranquil.”

“No!” Hawke exclaimed. “She is a Grey Warden and protected from the reach of the Chantry.”

“We made that argument,” he said, running his fingers through his dark hair. “And they told us that the Divine had empowered them to take any mage they felt was a threat. Her position as a Grey Warden was not going to deter them, because the Blight is over for now.”

“Is she all that’s left of your squad?” the Champion asked shrewdly.

Shaking his head, he answered, “No. Bethany and I escaped when a camp was made, and I ordered the rest of my Wardens to return to our stronghold and report what had happened to us. I only pray that they were able to escape at some point.” He paused and shrugged his shoulders, shifting the lay of his shield across his back. “Perhaps your sister’s luck will carry them through as it’s delivered us to you,” he murmured.

He could feel the Champion’s eyes studying him further, and he willed himself to remain absolutely still. He could not be certain what Bethany’s sister was looking for in his expression or the way he held his body, but he could feel her examining every inch of him. It was a penetrating stare, and it made him feel that all of his secrets would be exposed.

It wasn’t that he had that many secrets, but the ones that he held closely were vital for his own safety and the safety of those around him. Especially Bethany.

Because she had made him the luckiest man in the world: she was in his life.

He had admitted to himself when she had returned from helping her sister defend the mages in Kirkwall that he had let his feelings for her go too far. She was his subordinate, and she depended on him to maintain her safety when they carried out their assigned duties. There was no room for personal feelings in the Grey Wardens; their job was too important, too necessary for the protection of everyone in Thedas. He could not place her above his duty, no matter how much he longed to live only for her … for her smile and her touch. For the way she reined him in. And for the way she tried to order him around without understanding what she was doing. If he didn’t get his feelings controlled soon, he would become a laughingstock among his garrison — the man who loved the mage who was just that much too young for him. Reaching up, he stroked the long edges of his mustache as he pondered how best to deal with his feelings for her.

He was still considering the issue when the white-haired elf walked out of the darkness and up to the Champion. “Are you all right?” she asked him in a tight little voice.

“Their work is astounding,” the elf replied. “Between them, they have reinforced and realigned what Abelas and I created and more. But I couldn’t watch any longer.”

The Warden-Lieutenant saw Hawke nod and then look over at him. “Fenris, do you remember Stroud?” she asked the elf. “We ran into him at the most convenient times in Kirkwall. Although he seems to think that my sister is the catalyst that made those meetings happen.”

“I do remember,” he answered, “and watching your sisters work on the barricade, I can believe that either one of them might be able to move heaven and earth to get what she wants.”

“She can be very determined,” Stroud agreed cautiously. “It has been a benefit to her compatriots, however.”

Fenris frowned at him, and the Grey Warden raised an eyebrow in return. What have I said, he wondered, to make this elf suspicious?

“In any event,” Hawke was saying, “it’s a good thing that we ran into them. The templars that the Divine sent to search for the thaig are using their very vague permissions to capture and make tranquil mages that they determine are a threat. Which at this point probably means any mage that they meet.”

“You know my feelings on the subject, Hawke,” Fenris countered. “Some expediency will always make it easier or justifiably necessary for a mage to turn to demons and blood magic. It’s inevitable.”

“You honestly think,” she responded, and Stroud could see that her temper was rising quickly, “that either of my sisters would abandon everything that they have been taught simply for expediency?”

The elf replied just as heatedly, “In my experience …” he began, only to stop short when a hand landed on his shoulder. Looking behind Fenris, Stroud saw the other elf, the one with red-brown hair and brilliant green eyes, and watched as he squeezed his fingers together on the white-haired elf’s shoulder.

“You need new experiences, my friend,” the other elf said.

Fenris snorted, but the Warden-Lieutenant saw that he was willing to let the argument go for the moment. Stroud saw the red-haired elf nod to him, and he quickly returned the salute. “You are …?” he asked leadingly.

“Abelas,” the elf answered. “I am with the Commander of the Grey.”

“Are you a servant, or …?” Stroud was confused: Fereldens didn’t believe in slavery, but Grey Wardens didn’t employ or travel with servants. Something beyond his understanding was happening here, and he could feel the frustration of not knowing rising up inside of him. He frowned and looked up the cut to where the mages were working in the darkness. He would have strong words for the Commander of the Grey when she returned. After all, she had learned everything that it meant to be a Grey Warden from a green recruit; what had been left out of her training because they had been called to act for the good of all? Yes, they would speak about this, he told himself.

He realized that Abelas had not answered his question, and he frowned thoughtfully at the completely bland look on the elf’s face. Hawke and that other elf — the one with the white hair and strange tattoos — had moved down into the corridor and were discussing something in low whispers. He looked back at the red-haired elf.

“You haven’t answered my question,” he stated baldly.

“No,” Abelas said. “I haven’t.” Moving past the Warden-Lieutenant, the elf stepped onto the smoothly paved hallway. “Fenris and I — and perhaps Hawke — will scout ahead. The Mabari will stay with you. The Commander of the Grey suggests that you wait for her and protect them if the need arises.” With that, he strode away toward the other elf, retrieving the long bow that Fenris held out to him. As the two hounds walked over to take up positions next to him, Stroud watched the three companions move off down past the long line of closed doors.

The Mabari looked Stroud up and down and seemed to decide that he wasn’t going to offer them any amusement, so they settled at his feet and seemed to doze off. He watched the dark tunnel, hearing occasional chatter from the women there, and glanced down the hallway in both directions at regular intervals. A watchman! he fumed: that woman had reduced him to the position of watchman with a simple message sent by her servant. His hand closed tightly around the pommel of the sword that hung at his hip, and he started rehearsing what he would say to her when she emerged from the tunnel. Yes, she was one young lady who needed to learn where she really stood in the hierarchy of the Grey Wardens.

The hounds heard the voices first and eagerly lifted their heads, rising to their feet and wandering toward the narrow opening. Bethany emerged, reaching down to tug at one of the Mabari’s ears and telling him to move out of the way before he tripped someone. The dog seemed to respond by bumping into her legs and causing her to stumble. She stopped and looked down at the hound.

“You did that on purpose, Brute,” she said accusingly. The dog whuffed and bounced down onto the smooth stone of the hall.

The Commander of the Grey came out of the darkness next and dropped to her knees to embrace the dog that obviously belonged to her. He responded by butting his head against her chest, and she laughed gently at the hound. The Warden-Lieutenant saw her look up at him, and she immediately straightened to standing.

“What’s wrong?” she asked him, laying her hand on the top of her Mabari’s head.

“I believe we must speak further, Commander,” the Warden-Lieutenant said sternly, “specifically about your behavior and the man who travels with you.”

“Abelas?” she asked quietly. “What do you have to say to me about him?”

“This is not a conversation that Bethany need be a party to,” he answered, jerking his head at his subordinate to indicate that she should move to a position farther down the hall. But before she could obey his order, the Commander of the Grey reached out and placed her hand on her sister’s arm.

“If this conversation is about my relationship with the elf,” Rhoane said to him, “it may concern her more than you think. After all, he is my husband, her brother-in-law, and the father of the child I’m carrying.”

Stroud stared at the Commander of the Grey, stunned. He had guessed that she had ignored at least some of the rules governing the behavior of Grey Wardens, but he could never have imagined that she would flout almost every precept that made their order what it was. He inhaled deeply, prepared to deliver a lecture on the fundamentals of their duty, when she interrupted him.

“Being a Grey Warden might mean something else now,” she said, “because of my own actions. If you will give me a little time, I can explain it all. To both you and Bethany.”


	16. Part Two • Chapter Four • Bethany Hawke

Bethany watched in dismay as Stroud walked away from the small cooking fire that they had lit. Throughout dinner, he had been sullenly silent, even when she had addressed him directly. And now he had stalked off down the wide throughway that Fenris and Abelas had discovered, a place that offered some small shelter, access to fresh water, and gave them excellent views in all directions. Their campsite was meager, only their few tents, their packs and weapons, set on a flat level of a large, wide staircase that led them away from the row of small rooms that they had found when they left the Deep Roads. But she and Stroud had been able to enjoy the first warm meal that they’d had in almost a week, and she was actually looking forward to being able to sleep for more than an hour or so — even if she was sleeping on the hard stone of the infamous Red Thaig.

She lifted her head again and looked down the passage toward where Stroud had disappeared. Closing her eyes, she fought against the feelings of guilt that were running through her: it wasn’t her fault that they had run into Jaya in the Deep Roads. It wasn’t her fault that a sister she had never heard of had changed the meaning of the duty of the Grey Wardens. So she had absolutely no responsibility in whatever was bothering the Warden-Lieutenant.

But it had been her fault that they were running in the first place. As soon as the templars had known that she was a mage from Kirkwall, they had been determined to subdue her, chain her, and then find a way to make her tranquil. And they had been beyond reason: nothing Stroud said, no exemption for Grey Wardens or appeals for some kind of hearing before the Divine, would convince them to allow her to remain under his command. It was only through his extensive tactical training and subterfuge that she was unshackled and still able to use magic. She owed him something for that.

“You should speak with him,” Rhoane said, coming up to her and taking a seat beside her on the top step. “You’re the only one who knows anything about him. There’s nothing that any of us can say.”

“I don’t know what use I’d be,” she answered. “I can’t even begin to imagine what has him so upset.”

Her eldest sister — the sister who was still an enigma to her — smiled. “Can’t you? I just told him that everything that he has spent his life building is useless in the future. The Grey Wardens, his rank, his fellow soldiers — I’ve stripped them all away from him. Hasn’t anything like that ever happened to you?”

Bethany frowned and looked away from those dark brown eyes that were so like her own. “Yes, I can understand feeling like that.”

“Then go to him and listen. That’s all you need to do.”

Bethany sighed and pulled at the hem of the tunic of her Grey Warden uniform. “But he’s my commander. He doesn’t need advice from someone who follows him.”

Her eldest sister reached out and placed a hand on her arm. “Don’t give him advice. Just listen. He needs someone to work through his feelings with. You’re the best person to be that someone.”

“You’re right, of course,” Bethany admitted. “Maker take you, do you always use this wise advisor routine to get what you want? Is that how you gathered the armies to defeat the Archdemon?”

Rhoane laughed, “No, it wasn’t always that easy. I had to kill quite a few dwarves to get their allegiance. It was much more persuasive than words ever could have been.”

Bethany stared at her sister in surprise for a moment. “You’re kidding right?”

The Commander of the Grey shook her head. “You know, Fenris has called Jaya and me stubborn, but I’m not sure he’s met enough dwarves.”

“And he barely knows me, too,” Bethany replied. “Stubbornness must be a family failing.”

“Or a blessing,” her sister replied. “Conviction. Commitment. Determination. They all take a pinch of stubborn to achieve success.”

“All right, all right,” Bethany said, rising to her feet and holding her hands out in surrender. “I’ll go tal- — listen — to him. It will probably take some commitment and determination, but I’m stubborn enough to pull it off.”

Rhoane smiled up at her and mouthed a quiet word of thanks. Before turning away, Bethany handed her staff to her sister. Then she straightened the lay of her tunic and set off to find where Stroud had hidden himself.

He wasn’t far away, actually, perched on the ledge that ran along the side of the staircase maybe fifty paces away or so. He was running a whetstone down the blade of his sword in long, slow strokes, but his eyes were distant and the rhythm of his sharpening was different than the efficient cadence he usually maintained when refreshing the edge on his weapon. She walked past him and stopped where he could see her, looking up the stairs toward him.

“Stroud,” she said softly.

The steady shush of the stone against the blade continued. He didn’t look up at her, but she could see that his eyes had dropped to the weapon in his hands. At least he has some awareness that I’m here, she thought.

“The Commander of the Grey sent me,” she explained. “She thought you would need someone to talk to.”

“So you come at her behest?” he asked, his voice a low growl in his throat, unlike anything that she had ever heard from him before. “Not from any concern of your own?”

She could feel her temper rising, but she fought against the urge to snap at him in return. Rhoane had only wanted her to listen: starting a fight was going to be the furthest thing from what the Commander had wanted to happen. “Of course I’m concerned. Personally. I’ve never seen you act like this before. Who wouldn’t be concerned?”

“So you have some thought of care for me?” The low growling continued, and it made Bethany frightened. Something was very wrong, and she might not be prepared to deal with it. Oh, Maker, why now? Why here? she thought.

“I don’t know that we should discuss that, Stroud,” she said evenly, struggling to keep her voice level. “I want you to tell me what’s troubling you.”

“If that is what you wish,” he murmured, “then there will be no avoiding my question either.” The stone whispered across the steel of his blade. “You understand that your sister — with a few well-chosen words of her very practiced explanation — has destroyed everything that my life has been until this moment, yes?”

Bethany nodded. “Yes, of course, and I can understand how it feels, too. It’s how I felt when I joined the Grey Wardens in the first place.”

“Yes,” the Warden-Lieutenant said, rising to his feet and sliding his sword back into its scabbard. Re-armed, he looked so much more like the man she had served for so many years, and a little thrill at the memory of their time together raced through her. She watched as he crossed to the step below the one she was standing on and turned so that she could face him. They stood eye-to-eye on their uneven levels, and she searched his face for some sign of what he was thinking. A sudden stab of regret for leaving her staff with her sister raced through her, but she pushed it into the back of her mind.

“I feel a similar emotion at losing so much,” he answered her, and she could feel the anger behind every word that he spoke. The cautious phrasing of his reply contrasted with the throbbing pain that she could hear in his voice, leaving her confused and uncertain. He continued, “But your sister has done more than take a life from me. She has expanded my universe with unimagined potential.”

“I don’t understand,” Bethany said cautiously.

Stroud looked away from her, down the long length of the staircase, before he continued. “As a Grey Warden, my life was defined. I would live as was expected: battle the darkspawn, protect my brothers, and work for the strength of the order. When the calling from the taint in my blood became too strong, I would lose myself in the Deep Roads, killing as many darkspawn as I could before they overcame my ability to respond. It was a life that I had chosen — that I celebrated being a part of — and I knew the direction that it led.

“When your sister told us that these were not to be the results of my life as a Grey Warden,” he explained, “she also told me that there were other pathways that I could choose. With a free conscience and an unburdened heart. I could serve someone because I believed in his cause. I can leave the duties of a soldier and practice a trade. And I can love …”

He stopped, his eyes returning to hers. She stared at him, feeling all the longing and hope that his gaze held wash over her. His desire startled her, and she could feel the fear that she had pushed down in the darkness of her mind surge through her. Even though she had understood what her sister’s words meant, she hadn’t thought beyond the immediate ramifications: that she could leave the Grey Wardens, because they were no longer necessary. With one glance, Stroud had shown her everything that her sister’s actions had created. She felt as if her head were spinning, and she reached up to press her hands against her temples.

“And yet I am equally as chained again,” he continued, “because mine is the love of a fool. The love of a man who has seen the face of his beloved painted across the night sky and yet cannot fly to her side. A love that is inappropriate for a man of my age.”

“Stroud, no …” Bethany replied, feeling tears sting in her eyes. “I don’t understand.”

As if to answer her question, he pulled her into his arms and pressed his lips against hers. She gasped in surprise, and he deepened the kiss, bringing one hand up to the back of her head and wrapping the other tightly around her waist. She let her arms fall to her sides, uncertain what she should do in response to the first kiss from a man that she had ever received. For some reason, her eyes wanted to close, and she let them slide shut even as she let her lips part beneath the insistent searching of his tongue. Her hands came up — almost without her willing them to do so — and fluttered just above the strong curve of his shoulders. She could feel a fire start somewhere deep within her body, and she shivered as it raced from her molten center and across every inch of her skin. Relaxing against the hard curve of his arm, she let him support her as she drifted in a haze of sensation.

His kiss softened, and she could feel herself yearning to press forward, deepening her own contact with his lips. The yearning — the sense of wanting so desperately to stay just where she was, held tightly and protected in his arms — was what brought the fear snaking through her mind again. Everything and everyone that she had ever truly loved had been taken from her in one way or another. There was no place in her life for a relationship like the one her mother and father had had, a relationship of mutual reliance and barely concealed passion. They — all those unnamed forces in the world — had forced her to become self-reliant and passionless. Passion was the danger to mages. Passion would kill her in the end. It was impossible for her to give in.

She resisted the urge to lean toward him and allowed her hands to slip down and brace against his upper arms. As she stilled, she felt his response change, and he lifted his mouth from hers, his embrace loosening as he looked into her eyes.

The fear drove her. She could only react, her brain gripped by terror of all the possibilities that the panic suggested. Lifting one hand, she brought it across Stroud’s face in a stinging slap.

He stopped moving and let his arms fall from around her. As she stumbled away from him, he straightened his surcoat and ran a hand quickly through his hair. For a moment, he studied her face and then he strode away back toward their camp.

Bethany lifted a hand to her lips, her fingers hovering over the inflamed flesh of her mouth. The tears that had been threatening to drip from her eyes began to roll down the smooth contours of her cheeks. A deeper, horrifying terror, greater than the one that had caused her to slap Stroud, suddenly welled up inside of her. He was lost, her fear told her: you have lost him.

“Maker’s breath,” she whispered. “What have I done?”


	17. Part Two • Chapter Five • Rhoane Amell

Rhoane and Jaya sat together near the opening to the older sister’s tent, discussing the Champion’s memories of the Red Thaig. The Commander of the Grey was making sketches on the back of a piece of paper that she had stuffed into the bottom of her pack, using the charred end of a piece of wood from their fire to trace the general outlines of a map. Her sister leaned in to check her lines, adding definition to points that she could.

“Andraste’s flaming knicker weasels,” Rhoane muttered angrily as she saw Stroud coming up the stairway. She watched as he passed their position and strode down the pathway that they had been planning to take after they had rested. The ambient light from the Red Thaig was interfering with all of their sleep patterns, and she had decided that they needed a good sleep before they went any farther. But there went Stroud, looking even more angry and with a bright red stripe across one cheek. It did not appear that he would be sleeping any time soon.

“What’s the matter?” Jaya asked softly.

She sighed. “It looks like Bethany has slapped her Warden-Lieutenant.”

“What?” the Champion exclaimed, her voice a whisper that only her sister could hear. “I thought she liked him.”

“Perhaps she doesn’t know her own heart,” the Commander of the Grey replied, looking down the stairwell. “Do you think we should go find her?”

Jaya shook her head. “She’ll come along. I’m more worried about Stroud being alone if he’s even more upset than he was.”

Nodding, Rhoane called her Mabari to her side and told him to go play with Stroud. The hound wagged his tail furiously and raced off after the Warden-Lieutenant.

“I’m not sure Orleasians like dogs as much as Fereldens do,” Hawke commented.

“It doesn’t matter. Noble isn’t actually going to play with him,” her sister said. “He’s going to protect him. If Stroud isn’t paying attention, he might not even know that my hound is there.”

She was distracted from her map again by the sound of a sniff coming from the direction where she knew Bethany had gone. Looking over at the stairs, she saw her youngest sister slowing stepping toward them, her eyes red from crying. Rhoane started to rise, to go to her sister to comfort her, but Jaya placed a hand on her arm and she stilled.

“Bethany?” Hawke asked gently.

A sob escaped from their sister, and Bethany raced toward them, throwing herself into both of their arms. Rhoane held her close and stroked her hair, meeting Jaya’s eyes over the top of their sister’s head.

“Sweet girl,” the Commander of the Grey murmured. “What has happened?”

Bethany continued to sob into her shoulder. Nodding to Jaya, Rhoane suggested, “Maybe something to drink would help?”

Hawke shrugged and slipped away from her entanglement with her sisters. Rhoane shifted her youngest sister so that she could gently stroke her back and murmur soothing words in her ears. When Jaya returned with a flask, the Commander of the Grey forced Bethany to sit up and take a drink. The girl’s sobs hiccoughed as she sipped from the container, but the bitter distress of her sorrow had seemed to pass.

“Can you talk about it now?” Rhoane asked. “What has happened?”

“Stroud kissed me,” Bethany whispered, her face hidden in her hands.

“Badly?” Jaya joked. Rhoane frowned gently at her.

“I … I don’t know,” their little sister replied. “I’ve never been kissed by a man before.”

Hawke was about to say something, but the Commander of the Grey shook her head. Bethany continued, her voice shaken by gasping sobs, “I mean … I played forfeit games with the boys in Lothering, but their kisses weren’t anything like …” She stopped, her fingers unconsciously coming up to rest against her lips, her eyes misty and distant.

“Did you … enjoy it?” Rhoane questioned.

A frown crossed her sister’s face. “I don’t know. It made me feel … and then I was afraid.”

“Why?” Jaya interrupted. “There’s nothing to be feared from a few kisses.”

“Not for you, maybe,” Bethany answered their sister, “but I’m a mage. I’ve been warned against uncontrolled feelings for my entire life.”

“And you slapped him?” The Commander of the Grey continued, “Then he walked away from you, and you felt …?”

“Abandoned,” her youngest sister admitted. “Alone. Even worse than when Jaya sent me to join the Grey Wardens.”

Rhoane reached out and stroked her sister’s hair. “Had you even thought about how you felt before today?”

“Of course not,” Bethany answered. “We’ve been too busy. I’ve barely had time to breathe.”

“Did he say anything else?”

A blush rose up in her sister’s cheeks, and the Commander of the Grey smiled slightly to herself.

“He didn’t say the words,” Bethany said hesitantly, “but I think he … I mean … a thing that he said … he said it about being in love with me. It was beautifully poetic. Not like him at all.”

Rhoane sighed, relieved that the Warden-Lieutenant wanted more than just a casual relationship with her sister. Not that she had considered him that kind of a man, but she couldn’t have been certain until she heard the words herself. Reaching out, she took one of her sister’s hands in her own.

“There’s nothing wrong with feeling a deep passion for someone else, Bethany,” she said quietly. “It’s the commitments we make to each other that actually strengthen our ability to resist the temptations that wielding power draw to us.”

“But everyone says that deep emotion is what drives mages to use blood magic,” her sister argued. “Look at that man who killed our mother.”

Smiling slight, Rhoane said, “And I would say look at our father. Did his love for our mother ever drive him beyond his own rules for using magic?”

“I can answer that,” Jaya said. “Even when he was dying, he would only use his magic for what was the best for his family. Those he truly loved.”

“What is best — not what is base — in me,” Bethany repeated softly.

“Two friends of mine once had an argument about love,” Rhoane said, remembering the evening of Alistair and Anora’s wedding and coronation. “In the end, I think that they agreed that there is nothing base about a deep, committed love between two people.”

Bethany dropped her head into her hands and sighed deeply. “And I’ve ruined everything.”

Rhoane laughed, a tender, understanding sound, and hugged her sister to her. “I doubt that, Bethany. Lasting love isn’t like a candle — with a flame that can be snuffed or lighted in an instant. It’s like the coals of a fire that’s banked for the night. It still burns, waiting for a new encounter to give it more fuel. Wouldn’t you say so, Jaya?”

“Oh, Maker, yes!” her other sister agreed. “It can smolder for years without anyone ever tending it properly, and then when you do …”

The Commander of the Grey laughed again, this time more loudly and clearly, the sound bouncing from the stone walls. She was pleased when Bethany joined her, and their laughter redoubled when a rosy blush stole across Jaya’s face.

“There, you see,” Rhoane said, gesturing toward the Champion. “If your roguish, no-nonsense sister can experience passionate love for a man, there’s hope for all of us.”

“It’s your fault,” Jaya replied huffily. “If your husband hadn’t gotten Fenris so drunk …”

“What?” Rhoane challenged her. “You’d still be gazing longingly at each other from the sides of your eyes? Fighting like cats and dogs over trifles?”

“Did it make a difference?” Bethany said. “They still do that.”

Gasping in her breath, the Commander of the Grey started laughing even harder, the sound of her merriment and the joy of her sisters echoing around them. But their amusement subsided quickly when Bethany asked, “What if I have ruined it, though? What if he’s given up on me? He already told me that he thinks I’m too young for him.”

“Sleep on it,” Rhoane said, gesturing toward her tent. “Here with me, in case you need to talk about it when you awaken. I’ll be there for you.”

“Thank you,” Bethany whispered and rose to retrieve her staff. “If you’re certain. I don’t want to put Abelas out …”

Shaking her head, she motioned for her sister to enter the tent and watched as the flap fell closed behind Bethany. She sighed and pulled the map that she and Jaya had been making back into her lap.

“You should sleep, too, Rhoane,” Jaya said, taking the paper from her hand. “I know that this journey is more trying for you.”

The Commander of the Grey sighed. Ever since her sister had found the cut that led them into the Red Thaig, she had begun to dream — like the dreams she had had for months on end before her trip into the Black City. Someone was calling to her in a rhythmic, sing-song voice. She couldn’t understand the words, but she could feel the yearning that the music was meant to create. After speaking with both Bethany and Stroud, she knew that all three of the Grey Wardens were experiencing the same dreams, which meant that it had something to do with the darkspawn and the taint in their blood. She kept the information to herself, knowing that there was nothing that the others could do to help the Wardens while they slept.

“I think it’s actually more trying for you and Fenris,” she admitted. “If it weren’t for me, you two would have resolved this whole problem by now.”

“If it weren’t for you,” Jaya returned, “we’d still be floundering on the surface, trying to figure out another way to get here.”

She smiled at her sister and looked up to see Fenris and Abelas walking toward them from the path they were to take after resting. She rose to her feet and hurried over into her husband’s embrace.

He pressed a kiss onto her forehead and asked her, “What have you done to Stroud, ma vhenan?”

“Me?” Rhoane gasped. “Why do you think it was me?”

“Because only a woman can turn a normally peaceful man’s face into a thundercloud,” he said, smiling over at her.

Rhoane pretended to hang her head and looked up at her husband with the most ashamed face that she could manage with her lips twitching in laughter. “All right,” she admitted, “I suppose I am the root cause of this whole problem. I sent Bethany to talk to him. He kissed her, and she slapped him.”

“I see,” Abelas said, shaking his head gently at her. “I hope you have learned a lesson from this.”

“Oh, no,” she cried merrily, dancing away from his reach. “But you will. You’ll learn not to question the wisdom of the Commander of the Grey.”

He frowned at her and crossed his arms over his chest.

“Because Bethany was so upset, I told her that she could sleep in my tent. With me,” Rhoane said, lifting the canvas that covered the opening. “So you’ll have to find your own accommodations.” She stuck her tongue out at him and let the tent flap block her from his view.


	18. Part Two • Chapter Six • Stroud

Hawke and Fenris advanced to the huge, double doors cautiously, their weapon drawn, their eyes intent to catch any movement from the stone portal in front of them before it could become a danger to them or their compatriots. The Warden-Lieutenant trailed just behind them, his sword drawn and his shield braced over one arm. Hawke looked back at him and saw the small, tight nod that he gave her as he stepped up to her other flank. With the warrior elf on one side and him on the other, Hawke re-sheathed her axes and reached for the handle of the door on her right.

The giant slab of stone groaned as she pushed against it, pieces of rubble either being dragged along by the barrier or being ground into dust beneath the edge. When the opening was wide enough for her to slip through, she glanced swiftly into the next room and just as swiftly pulled her head back.

“Nothing obvious,” she whispered to the two men beside her. “But this door is resisting more. Can you help me?”

Stroud saw Fenris nod and watched as the elf put his back against the stone, his weapon still in his hands, using his legs to push the portal ajar as Jaya drove against the edge. With a heaving moan, the door gave way, sliding completely open and revealing the room on the other side.

He studied the room with quick, darting glances, concentrating on the dark edges of the space. Like every other place in the Red Thaig, it was lit with that strangely red glow from unprocessed lyrium. The bloody sheen made him grind his teeth together, but he forced himself to reassert control over his emotions. There was something here, something that danced to the melody that had been haunting his dreams and tried to draw him into its embrace. He hoped they were ready for it.

The Commander of the Grey came up behind him. “Maker’s breath,” she murmured. “This room is huge.”

“It looks just like …” Hawke started and then paused. He saw her swallow hard and then take another step forward.

Bethany finished her sister’s thought for her. “It’s just like the Chantry in Kirkwall. The design in exactly the same.”

“Dwarves do not worship gods,” he said, his voice harsh with tension.

“They don’t now, yes,” Rhoane said, and Stroud could hear the curious wonder in her voice. “Who can say what they did in a time when they built something like this?”

“It’s equally as remarkable,” Fenris said, taking a few more steps into the room and searching the darkness as intently as the Warden-Lieutenant, “that they would use the same design in their constructions for others. It seems that they have some kind of memory of building in this manner.”

As they advanced into the room, the details at the far end became more clear. A stories-tall flow of lava poured from what would have been the roof of the central room and into a square-cut pool on the level where the worshippers would have gathered in a typical Chantry. The lava fall was bookended by two raised platforms, like the dais where the Revered Mother delivered her sermons to the faithful, but split in two by the cascade of molten rock and capped by tall pillars that glowed red with the gleam of unprocessed lyrium. Unlike a Chantry, where most of the faithful usually stood, the floor of this dwarven place of worship was lined with long rectangles of stone. Perhaps used for seating, he conjectured as Hawke stepped forward and up onto one of the benches. From her elevated position, he saw her study the staircases that lined the two sides of the room, leading to an upper level. She looked over at the lyrium-branded elf and jerked her head toward the stairs on her right, and Stroud saw him motion for other elf to follow him. Hawke’s eyes met his, and he followed her to the left-hand staircase.

They soon discovered that upper level on their side had been reduced to rubble. A huge slide of rock had crushed the rooms that should have been there, and although they searched the area thoroughly, they didn’t find any additional openings. When they had explored the space, they returned to where the mages stood near the rectangular benches.

Fenris and Abelas joined them moments later and reported that they had found nothing on the other side of the main room. As he moved toward the lava pit, following the line of the center of the room, he saw Hawke move toward the gloom that led to one of the platforms in the front of the worship hall. As the shadows deepened, he lost track of her and changed his focus to the collected pool of lava before him. He crept as close as he could, peering into its flames that dances across the surface of the molten rock, but the searing heat from the flow created its own boundary that he couldn’t cross. Turning, he walked toward the stairs that led up to the platform on the opposite side of the room from Hawke.

Looking back over his shoulder, he saw the other members of their party spreading out through the room. Bethany and Rhoane had moved together to the left side of the room, and the Commander of the Grey’s Mabari followed them, pacing steadily with the two sisters, alert and patient. Abelas was patrolling near the open doorway, his bow taunt in his hands. Fenris and the other Mabari seemed to have followed almost exactly in his footsteps: the lyrium-branded elf now stood at that heated edge between fire and cool. He stopped with his foot on the lowest step and realized that the hackles of the Champion’s Mabari were standing straight up from his back. Something is wrong, he told himself silently, tightening the grip on his sword and turning back toward the center of the room.

As he took a stride away from the staircase, he saw that the elf seemed to be speaking, but he couldn’t hear any words — even here in the preternatural quiet of the abandoned thaig. Taking another step forward, he carefully shifted his shield in front of him and loosened his wrist with a practiced swing of his sword. At that moment, the elf’s white tattoos became alight, glowing with the fire of magic and conjuration. He gasped at the sight, freezing in place and hearing the music that had been playing again and again in his mind crescendo all around him.

Fenris’s tattoos were glowing red.

“Fenris!” he shouted as loudly as he could, even as the lava pool showered upward in an eruption of flame and light.

The creature coalesced from the molten rock, rising to a point that its shoulders were just above the height of the platforms. A long, curved horn rose from the right side of the monster’s head; the matching spike was broken off just above the curving pate, a jagged asymmetry. The construction of the head was like a stripped and bare skull, but the lower jaw was massively disproportional, jutting two handspans or more in front of the top grinding structure. A brilliant crack split the head open, allowing fresh streams of liquid lava to drip across the front of the cooled and blackened face and down into the space between the jaws. The same yellow-red liquid oozed from around the edges of the creature’s blood-red, glowing eyes, joining the streams from the skull to drain in sickly runnels back into the monster’s mouth.

It was massive, more hugely muscled than any Grey Warden hopeful that he had ever evaluated, with appendages that ended in clubs that also dripped molten streams. The lava from the collecting pool seemed to flow in and out from the monster’s body, pouring its power through it and giving it the living force for its manifestation. The fact that the creature didn’t step out of the pool gave Stroud some small measure of hope: perhaps the beast could be more easily slain because it was contained.

His hopes were smashed a moment later when the creature reached out one giant club and placed it on the floor of the great worship hall. As it leaned its mass on this appendage, another tree-trunk sized limb — perhaps a leg, formed from the molted flow and reached upward as if to step onto the floor of the chamber.

He saw its motion still when two spells wrapped the appendage that was already resting on the floor: the first froze the the arm, blackening and solidifying the rock and attaching it firmly to the floor, and the second wrapped the hardened stone in roots and vines, tying it in place. Looking over his shoulder, he saw the two mage sisters standing shoulder-to-shoulder, their eyes fiercely focused on the creature emerging from the pool. He ignored the little shiver of fear that ran through him when he saw Bethany preparing to cast another spell and looked toward the front of the room again.

He thanked the Maker that he had turned back when he did, because at that moment, Fenris flew across the room toward him, his halberd raised in a blow that was meant to shatter him, his armor, or his shield, depending how the strike landed. Without thinking, he dove, coming up on one knee and ramming his shield forward into the side of the lyrium-branded elf’s leg. Fenris staggered, but his years of training helped him recover his footing in the next instant. Stroud pushed himself backward to escape the scything cut of the next attack from the elf’s long blade and leaped to his feet, his eyes always on Fenris’s face. He could see that there was some kind of struggle going on within the elf, a battle that was beyond the clashing of their weapons. He shifted defensively, his shield a bulwark between them, and tried to move the elf farther down the room, away from the mages.

Hawke suddenly appeared directly behind Fenris and tried to use the pommel of one of her axes to strike the elf on the head. He dodged to one side, taking the blow on on his off-hand shoulder and ramming the butt of his weapon backward in a strike that was meant to knock the wind from the Champion. She ducked, sweeping one leg in a wide arch in front of her, hoping to catch one of his knees and unbalance him. Instead, he leaped vertically and landed facing directly toward her. Stroud watched as she rolled away and disappeared into the shadows.

In the moment that Stroud had before Fenris resettled his gaze on him, he looked over his shoulder to see the Commander of the Grey send her hound to the back of the room. Profane were rattling through an opening on one side of a wide passage that led into the central room. The other Mabari raced after the Commander’s hound, and the two dogs threw themselves against the stone of the creatures. Their eerie battle howls echoed throughout the room.

The Warden-Lieutenant turned — again just in time — to catch the blade of the halberd against his own sword, hearing the shuddering grind of the metal against metal. The elf attacked relentlessly, his weapon spinning in a rhythm that matched the beat of the song that Stroud heard throbbing in his head. He stutter-stepped, hoping to break the drumbeat that drove his clash with the elf, but the insistent tempo was just too strong. He could feel his shield arm start to quiver from the strain of absorbing the power of Fenris’s strikes, so many of which had been delivered by the elf’s entire body and guided by both of his hands. He gritted his teeth, determined to turn the rhythm of the battle to his advantage.

Hawke appeared behind the elf again and this time caught him under the ear with the back of her axe. He staggered, and Stroud stepped forward to drive his shield against Fenris, sending him reeling toward the side of the room. He and Hawke moved in unison, following the elf as he skidded across the floor.

Almost immediately, Fenris regained his footing, and Stroud saw that the light streaming from his tattoos had doubled. The elf became the umbra of a brilliant spectacle of light that danced around him in pulsating flurries until it suddenly blasted away from him with enough force to throw Hawke against a wall and Stroud back among the benches. He shifted to recover, but Fenris flew once again toward him, pinning him against the rectangular stone, one knee pressing him down. The Warden-Lieutenant stared up at the elf’s equally horrified face and watched as the blood-red, glowing hand pressed toward his chest.

A motion in the side of his eye caught his attention, and he noticed the other elf — the Commander of the Grey’s husband — sprint past them. He saw Abelas leap up the stairs and across the platform in the front of the room. Without reducing his momentum, he jumped out and grabbed hold of the long horn on the one side of the monster’s head, using it to swing himself onto the semi-molten skull. Rearing back, both hands wrapped around the hilt of his sword, he drove the blade into the oozing crack that ran down the middle of the creature’s head.

Stroud was certain that it wouldn’t work — that the massive molten core would melt the blade before it could make contact with something vital enough to destroy its existence. His pessimism seemed realized when the monster flailed its free arm and sent the elf flying across one of the platforms where he thudded against the wall heavily.

“No!” he heard the Commander of the Grey scream, and then she said, “Bethany! Shield!”

And he heard it, too — the sudden lurch of the rhythm of the song in his head. He could feel the beat throb once and more slowly again. Looking at Fenris, he could see that the elf had somehow stopped the forward motion of his hand, but Stroud was uncertain whether the battle was finished. Using the stillness of the elf as his signal, he raised both hands and pushed against the knee that was driving into his chest, knocking Fenris off balance and causing him to fall across the bench behind them. He rose to his feet, his sword in both of his hands, alert to the elf’s next move.

But the next motion didn’t come from the elf: it came from the cistern of molten rock. The lava heaved, surging up and washing over the creature as it stood flailing, trying to withdraw the sword that still sprouted between the sides of its head. Just a quickly, the molten flow withdrew, emptying the pool around the monster and seeming to whittle away at its essence. One final time, the lava rushed into the voids that its outflow had just created, exploding upward in a fountain that broke against the ceiling of the chamber, leaving dripping stalactites of cooling rock forming. The creature subsided into the pool, losing its form and merging with the steady, streaming flow of lava.

The music had stopped. His head was clear again.

Stroud looked to the back of the room where the Mabari had been forced to battle the Profane alone all this time. The hounds stood among a dozen or so corpses, most torn asunder by their powerful jaws. He could hear the remaining creatures moving away from them down the passage. He called to the dogs, and they halted near the opening of the tunnel, ready to resume their attack if necessary.

Hawke was limping toward him, one arm wrapped around her side as if to support it or protect it. Stroud looked down and reached out a hand to help the lyrium-branded elf to his feet.

“I apologize …” Fenris started, allowing the Warden-Lieutenant to drag him upright.

Stroud shook his head. “There’s no need. None of us knew what would happen here. Or if we were even in the right place to confront this evil. You were not yourself.”

“No,” Fenris admitted, pushing the fall of his white hair away from his eyes. He looked ruefully over at Hawke as she came up to them, but she only stepped up close to him and leaned against his shoulder. Unable to bear their intimacy, he walked toward where the mages had done battle.

Bethany had collapsed to the stone floor, and her breath was dragging through her lungs in great heaving sighs. Kneeling beside her, he asked, “What can I do?”

“You have to take me to Abelas,” she gasped, and he remembered the sight of the red-haired elf driving his sword into the head of the great lava monster. Bethany continued, “I only know a little healing magic, but Rhoane has none. I have to do something for him.”

“Can you walk?” Stroud asked, repositioning himself so that he could carry her if necessary. When she nodded, he slipped one of her arms over his shoulder and lifted her to stand at his side, wrapping his other arm around her waist. They were stumbling forward together when he saw the Commander of the Grey at the edge of the molten pool. He kept them moving slowly forward, but stared continually at what Bethany’s sister was doing.

As he watched, she swung her staff against one of the columns at the side of the pool, knocking loose great chunks of the raw lyrium that decorated it. Dropping her weapon, she wrapped a piece of the rock in each of her hands and turned toward the molten cistern again. A blood-red fire erupted around her as she channeled her abilities, powered by the magical properties of the lyrium. A blizzard of frost rose around her, swirling up to the height of the ceiling and the opening through which the great stream of molten rock still poured. Magnificent icicles formed, dripping down into the rapidly cooling lava pool, the water sizzling as it struck and instantly turned to vapor. She drove the ice-water upward, pressing it ever harder against the seemingly resistant rock above the cistern. Then she repeated the process above the opening that allowed the lava to enter the room, slowing the flow by hardening the topmost layer even as it tried to force its way through the gap in the wall.

At some point, it seemed that she had created enough of a build up of ice, because the blizzard subsided around her. In their place, great, reaching roots sprang up from the rubble that littered the floor of the thaig, rushing toward the icicles and wrapping round and around them. Rhoane raised her hands and entwined them in the roots nearest her. With one vicious tug, she brought the entirety of the ceiling that she had cracked and split with her frost magic down into the rapidly cooling cistern. Her hands reared back, and a massive boulder, wrapped in the growth that she had created, flew up and lodged deeply into the hole where the lava had once flowed. The lava pool stilled as the dust settled around it: it would never be refilled.

Stroud was lowering Bethany by Abelas’s side when Rhoane launched the boulder to block the slowed stream of molten rock. He watched as she turned from the pool and walked toward the doors that they had used to enter the worship hall, her body still enveloped in the bloody fire. She disappeared down the passage where the Profane had entered the room. He looked down at Bethany uncertainly.

“No,” she replied, “I need you here. You might have to hold him down while I’m trying to mend the injuries that I can. Oh, Maker, we have to save him.”

Stroud nodded and placed a hand on her shoulder. It almost seemed that she didn’t notice — her attention was so focused on Abelas — until she reached up and squeezed his fingers. He stayed beside her, willing her to succeed for herself, for her sister — for all of them. The red-haired elf had save them all in that moment when he charged up the stairway; he would do everything he could to help save him now.

Stroud was barely aware of anything around him until he heard a man’s voice yell from the opposite end of the room.

“Can I help with that?” the stranger asked.


	19. Part Two • Chapter Seven • Fenris

“You have to follow her,” Hawke was saying to him as she leaned against his body. He was afraid to let her go, uncertain that she could support her own weight and that she wasn’t more seriously injured than she appeared.

They both started when that familiar voice broke the resettling stillness around them.

“Can I help with that?” Anders asked as he stepped through the open door at the back of the worship hall.

“Maker, yes, Anders,” Hawke called to him. “Bethany doesn’t have your experience with healing magic.”

The apostate mage and former Grey Warden — and the root of all of the problems that had occurred in Kirkwall — hurried across the room. As he passed Hawke, he said, “I think that’s a couple of broken ribs there, Hawke. And that gash on your head looks pretty nasty, Fenris.”

“It will heal,” the elf barked at the mage. “Help her sister.”

He could feel Hawke sag even more heavily against him, and he reached down to lift her chin with his fingers. “Hawke,” he murmured, “I can’t leave you like this.”

She shook her head. “It’s just relief,” she replied. “Bethany’s luck as come through for us again. Anders. Here. Just when we need him so desperately.”

“Anders. Here.” Fenris growled his response. “What other calamity awaits us?”

“The only one I can think of is my other sister,” she said wearily. “Please, you have to go to her. You know that you’re the only one who can deal with it if …”

Fenris bowed his head, blocking out the sight of the trust that he found in her eyes. He was not feeling like the most trustworthy person at the moment, especially after being forced to fight his own compatriots only minutes before. But she was right. He was the person here who knew best what a mage could turn to if they chose to offer themselves up to demons. He pressed a kiss to her forehead and helped her sit down on one of the hard, stone benches.

“Take care,” Jaya said, squeezing his hand, “of both of you.”

Nodding, he walked over to where his halberd was lying on the floor and slipped it into its brace on his back. He ran back to where the Marabi were still watching, noticing that both of them had suffered injuries of their own. Laying a hand on each of their heads, he stepped through the rubble and corpses of the Profane to follow Hawke’s sister.

At the end of a short hallway, he found a staircase and followed it to the upper level. Shattered rock showed him that Rhoane had come this way and that she was still in the grip of whatever madness was consuming her — driven by the unprocessed lyrium. He slipped his weapon over his shoulder and continued up the steps.

At the top, the staircase ended in a set of double doors. He pushed both of them open at the same time and heard them thud against the stone walls. He had to step over more smashed bodies of the Profane as he walked into the room. For some reason, it reminded him of a library, with rows of shelves branching off from the central aisle. As he approached the opposite side of the room, he saw Rhoane standing in the midst of at least twenty fragmented Profane, one hand still gripping a glowing red piece of lyrium, the other hidden from his view in front of her.

He stopped behind her and waited, but she either hadn’t noticed him or was ignoring him on purpose. He realized that he had never had to address her by himself before and struggled with what to call her. In the end, he had to say something to attract her attention.

“Commander,” he tried, but her back remained stiffly toward him. “Rhoane.”

“Did she send you to kill me?” she asked, and he could see the tension in every line of her body.

Fenris swallowed. Until this moment, in his every encounter with a mage, he had always expected that it would end with the mage’s still-beating heart lying in the palm of his hand. But this was different: this was Hawke’s sister and Abelas’s wife. This was his … friend.

“I must do what’s necessary,” he replied, shifting his grip on the shaft of his halberd.

“I thought I had seen the stone of the Profane before,” she said randomly, and he had to lean forward in order to hear her soft voice. “But I could never place it until today.”

She turned toward him, and he warily took a step backward. Looking at the hand she held out to him, he noticed that the stone on her palm was a near-perfect match for the pieces of the Profane scattered across the floor. He tried to catch her eye, but her gaze was distant, unfocused. He tightened his grip on his halberd.

“I’ve broken this one,” she said, turning her hand and letting the stone and the chunk of unprocessed lyrium fall to the ground, its glow ceasing as it slipped away from her skin. “Sandal used to show me pieces of rock like this when his enchantments went wrong. He would say that the magic had drained out of them. That they were destroyed, useless.”

“Sandal,” Fenris said, trying to reassert some connection between the Commander and the real world. “We had an enchanter named ‘Sandal’ on our excursion into the Deep Roads.”

“There’s only one Sandal,” she said, smiling sadly. “I used to make up games for us to play with the destroyed rune pieces, just to keep him amused. No wonder I thought the Profane looked familiar.”

“So the Profane are creatures of lyrium rock?” he asked.

“I think so. They draw the magic into a central point, leaving just enough to power their movement.”

Fenris waited but she didn’t continue. “Is there anything else?”

“I don’t know,” she said, lifting her empty hand to rub across her forehead. “What were we talking about?

“Lyrium?”

“Yes,” she said, looking around at the stone at her feet. “I broke the other piece that I had. I think it was too small for the magic I wanted to channel through it. And it broke. Just like Abelas.”

“He’s not broken …” Fenris started, but she continued, lost in her own thoughts.

“I couldn’t protect him; and I chose to protect myself. I failed him. I demanded too much from him, and I broke him.” 

“No,” he said, letting his halberd fall to the floor beside him. “I’m the one who failed all of you. I fought my own people, and I put you all in danger, because I couldn’t protect you from me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she snapped at him, and he saw a bit of the Rhoane that he had been traveling with in her eyes again. “You were being controlled by that … lava … thing. You had no will of your own.”

“No, Rhoane,” he said gently. “You can’t excuse me that simply.”  
“Yes, I can,” she argued. “You have lyrium branded into your body. The dwarves’ — oh, Maker’s breath, I can’t call it a ‘god’ — it was a spirit of fire and earth. And it shaped lyrium for its own uses. It was easy for it to control you, to force you to fight for it.”

“But it shouldn’t have been. I should have been able to resist.”

“And I should have been able to protect my husband,” she growled at him.

“You protected what was most important,” he said, bringing one of his hands to rest of the curve of her pregnancy. “You protected the future.”

She frowned down at his hand for a moment, then looked up into his face. “You don’t have to do that, Fenris,” she said quietly. “I know you’re … uncomfortable … touching and being touched by other people.”

“It’s just mages, usually,” he said. “And there are exceptions to every rule.”

A smile slowly spread across her face, and she stepped up to him and wrapped her arms around his neck. The pressure of her body against his — friendly and comforting, not at all like the fire that raced through him when he held Hawke in his arms — reassured him somehow, and he returned her embrace. Her head fell against his shoulder.

“You don’t think that Abelas is destroyed, do you?” she asked in a small voice. “I haven’t … lost him … have I?”

“Not if Anders has anything to do with it.”

“Anders?” she asked eagerly, pulling away from him. “The Grey Warden?”

He let his arms fall to his side. “And apostate and cause of our problems with the Knight Commander in Kirkwall.”

“I suppose that he’s a mage you won’t touch,” she laughed at him, moving back to the place where he had first found her. She looked up at the wall in front of her, and Fenris noticed for the first time that it was decorated with large pictures carved from the native stone at this end of the room.

“What is it?” he asked her, picking up his halberd from the floor and slipping it over his shoulder.

“A mural. It tells the story of why this room exists. Do you know where we are?” she returned.

“In a library?” the elf answered, looking around him.

She shook her head. “It’s a shaperate: the place where dwarves store the memories of everything that happens in their thaig.”

“It seems empty,” he said, “for a place that stores all the memories of a people.”

“That’s my point,” Rhoane said, studying the wall. “I think that they had to create the shaperate after they stopped worshiping their fire-and-stone spirit. These shelves were placed here, not carved out of the earth like the other shaperate that I was in. The room has been adapted for the purposes of storing the memories; it was not originally made for it.”

She pointed to the picture in front of them. “In the picture, the dwarves are worshiping the spirit in their version of the Chantry. Then, the dwarves find the same spirit in their dreams. It’s as if the worship wasn’t enough; the spirit forced itself into their time in the Fade, too.”

She stepped closer to the wall and raised her hand to touch a section of the mural. “These images, the hooded figures …”

“Like the representations of the ancient magisters before the Tevinter Imperium,” Fenris said coldly.

“Yes,” she continued, “and here the dwarves dream undisturbed.”

“I don’t understand your point,” Fenris said, his brow wrinkling.

She turned to him and met his eyes. “This mural is saying that the ancient Tevinter mages were in some way involved in the dwarves sleeping like the stone — not dreaming. That means that there was a method — a spell or process that erased their ability to walk the Fade.”

“And?” he asked, still not understanding where her reasoning was leading.

“If it is possible to separate a dwarf from his ability to dream,” she said, looking back at the wall, “could we also separate a mage from the Fade? To take away their ability to walk in the land of dreams, and yet fundamentally leave them as they are — as people who can shape the elements with magic?”

“Because the Fade is …?” He struggled to follow her reasoning: the Fade was where the consciousness of every race except dwarves went when they slept. And it was dangerous to mages because it was also the realm of demonkind. “The Fade is where mages first encounter the demons who tempt them with blood magic and possessing power beyond what is available in the waking world,” he replied.

“And if mages couldn’t walk in the Fade, would demons still be able to find them and tempt them with their promises of power and blood magic?”

“I … I don’t know,” Fenris admitted.

“I think,” she said, moving closer to the wall, “that there’s something behind this bookcase. Can you help me move it?”

Stepping up beside her, he grasped the top of the stone shelves and pulled. To his surprise, he was able to tip it over easily and let it crash on top of the shattered remains of the Profane. He looked up at the portion of the mural that had been revealed and stared at it in surprise. On the wall, carved from the native stone, was a picture of the cloaked figures standing in a circle among the trees of a forest. A line of dwarves stood in the midst of the hooded magisters and were being led to oval portal of some kind. He felt his stomach shift when he recognized the item in the carving.

“Maker’s breath,” she whispered. “It’s …”

“An eluvian,” he said at the same time that she did.


	20. Part Two • Chapter Eight • Rhoane Amell

Rhoane followed Fenris down the staircase, away from the ancient dwarven shaperate. Stepping carefully, she marveled at the sheer number of Profane that she had been able to destroy with the help of the unprocessed lyrium that she had clutched in her hands. Her power to cast spells was limited and could be drained completely if she wasn’t careful, requiring her to drink a potion that would renew her ability to craft spells or stop casting and wait until her power restored itself over time. With the raw lyrium rock gripped in her hands, she had been able to cast almost ceaselessly and to craft the storm of ice that had helped her to collapse the lava flow and pool in the worship hall.

It’s probably another good reason to make sure that no one has access to this thaig again, she thought.

Looking at the shattered remains of the Profane, the Commander of the Grey also understood why Jaya had felt it necessary to send the lyrium-branded elf after her. The despair that had gripped her when she saw Abelas fly against the wall — swatted there like a pest by the fire-and-earth spirit in its pool — had driven her to extract her revenge where she could. She had collapsed the ceiling above the cistern so that no other spirit of fire could ever rise from its depths; she had driven away — or destroyed — every Profane that had answered the earth-and-fire monster’s call. Studying the destruction she had created, she applauded Jaya for sending Fenris after her. They had no way of knowing whether it was still Rhoane controlling her actions or whether she had snapped or been possessed. She admired the restraint that Fenris had shown when he confronted her: he could have simply separated her head from her body without waiting to discover who or what was in control.

“Fenris,” she said, reaching her hand toward his shoulder, but she almost immediately thought better of it. He turned and saw her hand extended toward him; reaching out, he grasped it in his own hand before she could withdraw it. Looking into his eyes, she said, “Thank you.”

“Of course,” he said. “Thank you, also. I can’t accept my failure as easily as you’ve dismissed it, but I understand the reasons you said what you did.”

She smiled and squeezed his hand. “And I appreciate that you didn’t just chop my head off.”

“Don’t worry,” he responded, “I still might have a chance.”

She was about to laugh when the noise of battle reached her ears. “Maker’s breath, what now?” she cried, dropping his hand and racing toward the opening to the worship hall. As she skidded to a stop in the opening, she felt the pulse of a push of magic that would have thrown her and Fenris back down the little passage if she hadn’t resisted its power. As it was, the elf took a couple of steps backward and had to struggle to maintain his upright posture.

Looking back over her shoulder, she raised her hand and motioned for Fenris to wait where he was. She straightened her coat and stepped into the worship hall.

Both of the enormous doors to the chamber were open, and she could see a squad of templars attempting to regroup — some shaking their heads and others trying to get back onto their feet. It was easy to deal with them: she simply cast a barrier across the opening.

Anders was going to be another matter.

The mage stood in the center of wide passageway that led to the worship hall, glowing in crazed crackles of brilliant white that flared and ebbed throughout his body. As Rhoane crossed in front of him, she saw that his eyes were glowing with the same icy light, completely blanking out anything that was naturally the mage’s own.

“You will not take this man!” the voice that came from the mage was saying with throbbing intensity. “You will not harm another mage. I will have justice!”

Rhoane stepped between the possessed mage and the barrier that she had put in place between him and the templars. She drew herself up to the tallest height she could achieve and put her hands on her hips.

“Stand down!” she barked at him, putting all her time as the Warden Commander at the fortress in Amaranthine into her voice.

The mage’s eerie white eyes turned toward her, and a frown deepened across his face. “If you do not stand with me,” the voice roared, “then you are one of them. You must be dealt with accordingly.”

He stepped forward, white fire flickering around his arm and fingers. Rhoane could see Jaya limping down the hall — one axe in her hand, the other wrapped around her torso as if to hold herself together. Stroud had farther to come, but he was also rushing toward her from the platforms by the lava cistern. Fenris had drawn his halberd and was standing in the opening that led to the shaperate, his hands unconsciously clenching and unclenching around the long shaft of his weapon. She looked up into the blazingly cold eyes and repeated her order, even as the mage’s fingers hovered above the flesh of her throat.

“Stand down, Justice,” she growled. “You are sworn to my service as a Grey Warden, and I order you to stand down!”

The burning fingers stopped, and the eyes that were not the mage’s met hers. “Co-Commander?” Justice, the spirit that shared Ander’s body, stuttered.

“I order you to stand down, Justice,” she said firmly. “You have no right to judge these men. Justice requires a process to determine guilt or innocence. If you kill these templars and those who travel with them, you are nothing more than a vigilante. There is no justice in that.”

“You do not understand,” Justice said, his voice rising again, but he let Anders’s hand fall back to his side. “You don’t know what the templars do … have done …”

Rhoane crossed her arms over her chest and raised one eyebrow at him. “I don’t? Do you remember to whom you’re speaking?”

The Commander of the Grey saw something cross the face that Justice controlled, something that looked much like shame to her. The white power that was flowing through the mage’s body flickered and then dimmed. Catching Ander’s form in her arms, she sagged to the floor with him and gently laid his head on the stone.

“He won’t remember this when he wakes,” Jaya called to her. “Anders has been blacking out while Justice is in control.”

“That may be for the best,” she said, smoothing the wisps of loose hair away from the mage’s forehead. She studied his face, noting the deep lines that had formed around his mouth and near his eyes. This Anders was nothing like the freedom-loving jokester that she had inducted into the Grey Wardens in Amaranthine: this Anders was haunted. Guilt and fear had eroded him into a bare trace of the man that she had once known.

“Surrender the apostate Grey Warden to us immediately,” a voice called from the other side of the barrier that she had created. “By the order of the Divine herself, surrender the murderer.”

“Fenris,” she called to the elf as she slowly rose to her feet, “take my sister back somewhere that she can sit down. Then take my pack to her and have Stroud bring me the paper that Zevran ciphered for us in Antiva.”

The elf obeyed immediately, slipping one arm around Hawke and calling to Stroud to halt his forward progress. She watched them struggle away from her for a moment, then tugged on the hem of her jacket to straighten it. Drawing in a deep breath, she turned to face the templar who was standing at the barrier.

“Surrender the mage to us,” he shouted at her again.

She strode toward barrier and looked through the shimmer of magic to evaluate her foe. Among the people standing facing her, she could see that at least half-dozen of them were wearing the same uniform as Bethany and Stroud: six Grey Wardens among what looked like just a little less than a score in total. The templars’ party had been decimated: less than half of the thirty or so that Zevran had told them were sent by the Divine still were in the group. And if the Grey Wardens would support her, their forces would be almost even with the templars and members of the Chantry. She smiled to herself, moved up to the edge of the barrier, and placed her hands on her hips.

“I refuse,” she said confidently. “I am the Warden Commander of the outpost of Amaranthine, and this Grey Warden is my recruit. I am the only authority in deciding his fate.”

“Ferelden dogs have no say in the workings of the Divine,” another templar roared at her. “Your Amaranthine outpost means nothing to us.”

“I was afraid that you might feel that way,” Rhoane replied. “But Grey Wardens do not answer to any authority other than our own chain of command. We cannot be ruled by kings or priests. We exist only to deal with the Blight.”

“The Blight is over,” the first templar barked at her.

“Is it?” she asked icily. “Then perhaps you should be thanking me. After all, I’m the person who saved us all from threat of the darkspawn. Me — the Grey Warden mage and Hero of Ferelden. Oh, yes, and the Warden Commander of the fortress at Amaranthine.”

She could see the change that washed through the group at her words: uncertainty filled every templar and Chantry priest on the other side of her barrier, and pride blossomed in the heart of every Grey Warden. Good, she thought. Now the templars would discover what they were really up against. She looked over her shoulder and saw Stroud running toward her, a paper in his hand.

“It appears that your forces are severely weakened,” she said to the first templar. “Didn’t you leave Orlais with more than thirty in your group?”

“How did …?” he started, only to stop himself. “We still have you outnumbered.”

Stroud came up to stand at her side. “Do you?” she said evenly and then called in a loud voice. “Does your force truly outnumber mine? What have you to say, Grey Wardens?”

As if they were one being, every Grey Warden — including the Warden-Lieutenant who was standing at her side — drew his or her weapon. The determined shush of swords rising from their scabbards and the click of staffs being released from their braces sounded around the walls of the ancient thaig. As the echoes continued, she dropped the barrier and stepped in front of the templar who seemed to be leading the group.

“I’m willing to wager,” she said softly so that only he could hear her voice, “that the people who remain in your party are only alive because of these Grey Wardens with you. Are any of your Grey Wardens missing, Warden-Lieutenant?”

“None, Commander,” Stroud answered her.

Rhoane looked around and then back at the templar. “I believe you have a choice, sir,” she said quietly. “You can throw your severely diminished force against the finest warriors in all of Thedas — and lose. Or you can take what is left of your party and return to the Divine with a message from me.”

“You have no authorization …” he started, but she interrupted him.

“Stroud?” she said quietly and watched as the Warden-Lieutenant extended the sealed letter toward the templar. The knight swallowed hard when he recognized the Divine’s seal and unfolded the paper to examine it. “I’m certain you recognize the cipher. You must have a message that says much the same thing on your person somewhere, don’t you?”

He looked up from the note and swallowed. “I apologize, Commander, we weren’t informed …”

She nodded and looked over at Stroud. “Would you please take the other Grey Wardens and escort the templars back to a place where it will be safe for them to rest before they begin their journey back to the surface? Then return as soon as you are able.”

Stroud nodded and started to move among the group waiting outside the worship hall. The Grey Wardens crowded up close to him and he greeted them enthusiastically, cheering their success in “protecting the templars.” He quickly established them in an order to guard the Chantry contingent and was about to give the order to leave when the templar that Rhoane had been talking to held the paper out to her and said, “Your message, Commander?”

Message? she thought as she took the page, remembering that she had wanted the templars to tell the Divine what had happened here so that other groups from Orlais would not try to reach the Red Thaig. “Inform the Divine that the power that created the madness that gripped the Knight Commander in Kirkwall has been destroyed. There is no further need to send troops into the Deep Roads. And I will be collapsing all access tunnels before I leave anyway.”

“As you command,” the templar said, bowing his head slightly and turned to join the templars as they moved away, ringed by the blue-and-white of the Grey Wardens.

She watched as the group led by Stroud moved away from her and around a corner in the thaig. Letting her breath escape in a sigh, Rhoane turned back into the worship hall and felt herself wobble, the exhaustion that she had been fighting suddenly flooding through her. She stumbled forward blindly and felt her arms caught in the grip of two strong hands. Forcing her eyes open, she looked up into Anders’s startled face.

“Commander!” he exclaimed. “You’re alive.”

She smiled hazily at him. Why did people always say the most obvious thing in a moment like this? she wondered.

“And you’re pregnant!”

“Thank you for noticing, Anders,” she joked. “The darkspawn never said anything about my delicate condition when we were battling. Not even once.”

“I’m … sorry?” he questioned, confused. He looked out between the large, open doors and the frown deepened between his brows. “I thought there were templars here.”

She shook her head. “I sent them away. This is a private party.”

She realized quickly that nothing that she was going to say would help him understand what had happened until she could explain everything to him. But now was not that moment. Now she could finally focus on what was truly important to her — and what she had been avoiding this entire time. She looked into his eyes and swallowed before she asked, “The elf — the one with the red hair …” She had to stop and take a deep breath before she could continue. “Will he live?”

Anders nodded gently. “Who is he? Should I take you to him?”

“Maker, yes,” she breathed and let him draw one of her arms around his shoulders. Leaning her weight against him, she walked with him toward the stairs that led to the platform that Abelas had collapsed on when the spirit had thrown him against the wall.

“I have to warn you,” Anders was saying, “that he looks much worse than his injuries actually are now. He’s thoroughly bruised and won’t be able to travel for at least a little while.”

“That’s fine,” she replied. “We have things to do here, and we all need to recover for at least a small amount of time.”

“Are you going to tell me who he is?” Anders asked again as they began to mount the stairs.

“His name is Abelas,” she whispered. “He’s the father of our child and my husband.”

She never heard if Anders answered her or made a comment on the fact that she — a Grey Warden — was married. At that moment, she saw Abelas lying on the floor with Bethany hovering over him. Nothing else mattered now except the fact that he was alive. She rushed to his side, laying her head gently against his chest, and let the tears that she had denied slip from between her lashes.


	21. Part Two • Chapter Nine • Anders

“You can come and get me if he wakes up,” Anders said to Bethany as he looked down at the exhausted Commander of the Grey sleeping on her husband’s chest, her body twisted in what looked like an impossibly uncomfortable pose so that she could protect her pregnancy. He was certain that her position wasn’t going to do any additional harm to the elf, so it was probably better to just leave her where she was. And she had cried herself to sleep so quickly after he had brought her to her husband’s side, he knew that she needed the rest. “If either one of them wakes up. I should probably make sure that she hasn’t received any injuries.”

“Of course,” Bethany replied, rubbing one fist across her eyes.

Reaching out, Anders placed a hand on her shoulder. “I just want to check in with Hawke — to make sure I’m not creating a bigger problem by being here. I’ll be back as quickly as I can so that you can get some rest, too.”

“No … of course not,” she replied. “Take your time.”

He smiled crookedly at her and walked down the stairs to the floor of the worship hall. Hawke was stretched out on one of the stone rectangles, her axes discarded on the floor by the bench and her arm still wrapped around her torso. Fenris was seated by her head, speaking with her in a low voice. Anders sighed and tried to gather his strength as he crossed to them.

“Don’t move, Hawke,” he said gently. “I can examine your injuries more easily if you just stay still.”

“You won’t have to tell me that twice,” she replied, reaching to the buckles that held her armor in place. She grunted as she had to stretch across her body to release the ones on the other side, and then let Anders lift her chest covering up over her head. He rolled her shirt up to expose the purpling bruises near her ribs and gently probed her body in order to determine the extent of her injuries.

“How did you get these?” he asked curiously. “Were you thrown against a wall?”

“Yes,” she replied. “Fenris did it.”

“Hawke,” the elf said in a quiet, tense voice.

“Oh, fine. He was being controlled … ow! … by a lava monster at the time.” She looked up at Fenris and continued, “There. Does that make it better?”

“No,” he answered her, “but there are other ways that I can exact my retribution.”

“Ooo,” she giggled, “Festis bei umo canavarum.”

“I can certainly try,” the elf answered her.

Anders frowned. “If you could just go back to being broody for a moment, Fenris, it would make all of this a lot easier.”

Hawke started to laughed and then stopped herself. “Ow! Stop it. I can’t … it hurts to laugh.”

“Revenge is sweet,” Fenris said, rising from his place on the bench. “I’ll go check the doorway.”

“Wait!” Anders called after him. “I should look at that … Andraste’s knicker weasels!”

Hawke giggled again, and he looked down at her in confusion. “So you’re the one who taught my sister to curse like that,” she said.

“Bethany?” he asked. “I don’t think I’ve spent more than five minutes in her company until today.”

“No, not her,” Hawke answered, bringing a forearm up to cover her eyes. “My other sister. Rhoane, the Warden Commander.”

“What?” Anders exploded, driving his fingers into the flesh on Hawke’s ribs.

She gasped. “Why doesn’t anyone storm out of rooms any more? That’s what I did when I heard.”

“So the woman who inducted me into the Grey Wardens …”

“Is my older sister, who was taken off to the Circle Tower at a very young age when she exhibited her first signs of magic in front of a templar. Mother may have changed her last name to protect Father. And you probably know or can guess the rest.” She lowered her arm from her eyes and reached out to grasp one of his hands. “There’s much, much more that she needs to tell you. And I have to let her be the one to explain.”

“All right,” he replied, lowering her undershirt. “You’re only bruised, as far as I can tell. Just be careful moving around for the next few days.” He looked up and saw Fenris walking back toward them. “And nothing … strenuous.”

Hawke followed the direction of his gaze and frowned. “Well, there goes my fun.” Calling over to the elf, she said, “Fenris, come here, and let Anders look at your head.

The elf frowned at her but returned to the seat he had occupied before. Anders walked to a place where he could look at the gash that had streaked Fenris’s white hair with blood. “And who did this …?” he started.

“Hawke,” the elf replied.

“Because you were determined to chop Stroud into multiple pieces,” she replied testily.

“Because my lyrium was being controlled by a lava monster,” he returned.

“If taking care of the two of you is going to be like this,” Anders said crossly, “I’ll go back in the Deep Roads. At least when the darkspawn growl at you, you know it’s because they’re about to try to kill you.”

“What are you doing here anyway, Anders?” Hawke asked, looking over at him. Her face was suddenly serious, and he thought he saw concern in her eyes.

“Trying to die,” he said as matter-of-factly as he could. “But since the Blight is over, it’s hard to find enough darkspawn to just trample you to death.”

“I …” Fenris started and then stopped, and Anders saw the fierce scowl that crossed his face. “You need to talk to the Warden Commander before you do anything rash. There are things you need to know that I think only she can tell you.”

“Hawke told me the same thing,” Anders replied. “But the Commander’s asleep. Do you think it’s … safe … for you — for all of you — if I’m here?”

“I think that my sister’s made it safe for us,” Hawke replied. “She told those templars — very clearly — that they’ll die fairly easily if they challenge us. And that was a neat trick she pulled with the note.”

“What note?” he asked, moving to sit on one of the other benches.

“You remember those bandits we fought on the way into Antiva?” He nodded and she continued. “They were actually traveling under the direction of the Divine to investigate the whole — Kirkwall incident. They had a coded message that gave them very sweeping powers to use with her blessing.”

“So it’s not safe for me …?” he asked.

Hawke shook her head. “Actually, I believe that those templars think we’re working for the Divine now.”

Anders laughed, loud and long. It was too ridiculous: that he — the person who had detonated the device that had taken the life of the Grand Cleric in Kirkwall and started the mages’ battle for freedom from the Chantry — would be working for the head of the entire faith. The irony was almost too much for him.

Hawke was smiling when he regained control of himself. “It’s good to have you back, Anders,” she said quietly.

Shaking his head, he answered, “You won’t say that when we’re any place other than the Deep Roads. Anywhere with people, I’m a huge liability.”

“You’re no liability to us.” A new voice joined their discussion, and he looked over to see the Commander of the Grey walking toward them. There were deep, purple-black circles under her eyes and her raven’s-wing hair had come loose from its braids, but she walked steadily toward him — no limps or hesitation in her step. He sighed, slightly relieved that she wouldn’t need his care right away: he was beginning to feel a little drained from all the healing work he had done since he arrived.

His Commander sat beside him and reached up to turn his head from side to side, examining his face critically. He was glad that he didn’t have a mirror close by: since he had snuck away from his companions on the Road to Antiva City, he hadn’t bothered taking care of many aspects of his health. He had been trying to die, after all, he reasoned with himself. It has seemed the only logical response to the trouble he had created in Kirkwall. He wasn’t at all sure that he should be the symbol for anyone’s movement — even one that he had started himself.

“I suppose this is all my fault,” Rhoane was saying and dropping her hand to her lap, “because I’m the one who suggested you explain to the Grey Wardens about the Architect.”

“Of course not,” Anders replied. “It’s always been me. You know I’ve never really been happy with being constrained. By anything.”

“And they never filled my requisition for the fancy dress uniform,” the Commander said and then sighed. “It would have been so nice to have at the parties.”

“Are you certain you’re feeling all right?” he asked her.

“Just hungry,” she answered, running her hand across the curve of her pregnancy.

“If someone could hunt up one of the local rodents,” Anders said, smiling, “Oghren taught me a great recipe for charred nug.”


	22. Part Two • Chapter Ten • Abelas

Abelas shifted on his bedding, uneasy with his enforced idleness. He understood that he needed to remain still, that his body required time to recover from the burns inflicted on the soles of his feet and the bruises caused by his impact with the wall of the dwarves’ worship hall, but he had spent the majority of his life as a slave. There was no rest time for those who owed their very existence to their owners. And as much as he understood and celebrated that Rhoane had freed him from that kind of living, he still chafed against his uselessness.

He stared around the room — his wife had called it a “shaperate” — where he had finally come completely awake days after the ancient dwarven spirit had been defeated. He remembered driving his sword into the creature’s head and being flung against the wall, but if he had completely regained consciousness in the time after, he couldn’t remember what had happened.

Right now, he was too aware that there was nothing that he could do to help.

Stroud and a group of Grey Wardens had returned to their campsite on the day after he awoke, reporting that he had escorted a group of templars — who had obviously attacked his friends while he had been incapacitated — to a point where they could safely return to the surface. Those same Grey Wardens were now patrolling the hallways of the Red Thaig, protecting their party and working to completely destroy access to the dangers of this dwarven construction, tasks that should have rightfully fallen to him.

It was more than he could stand, and he pulled his legs under him to begin to rise. He had managed to get to his hands and knees when the mage who had healed him — Anders — walked around the edge of the shelves where his and Rhoane’s bedding was laid out.

“What’s this?” the mage said, stepping up to his side and taking his arm.

“I cannot remain here when there are things that must be accomplished,” the elf said, using Anders’s support to rise to his feet. He found that standing was painful, but he had endured worse after being beaten by any of his masters. Taking a limping step forward, he pulled his arm from the mage’s grasp and turned to face him.

“Could you tell me where my wife is, please?” he asked.

“At the other end of the room — with the mural,” Anders answered.

Abelas nodded and started down the aisle, reaching out to lean against the bookcase nearest him to ease a little of the pain in his feet. He stopped when the mage stepped up beside him.

“Wait a minute,” said Anders, taking one of his arms again. “Are you trying to get me in trouble with the Commander?”

Abelas shook his head and took another step forward. He felt ridiculous, limping among the tall stone shelving units: he should be able to simply stride straight down this passage and take his wife into his arms. It should be so easy.

“You know that if she sees you walking up to her without me right beside you that she’s going to singe off my eyebrows, right?”

“She has told me that she would do the same to me,” Abelas replied. “It is an idle threat.”

“Yes, but I’m one of the Grey Wardens she inducted into the order,” the mage answered. “She has a special need to reform me. Even if it takes fire to do it.”

“Oh, very well,” Abelas snapped, looping his arm through the mage’s and leaning on him as he walked toward the mural at the opposite end of the room. By the time that they had reached the place where his wife was riffling through books from the library, he was grateful that he had allowed Anders to support him. His feet stung with every step, although he was certain they would have been worse before this day. Sinking into a chair beside his wife, he looked up and thanked the mage.

“I’m not done yet,” Anders replied and fussed over him for a few moments — long moments that felt like days because he was tired of being nursed — until the mage was satisfied that the elf would be comfortable. Nodding to the Warden Commander, Anders finally left them alone.

“Ma vhenan …” he whispered to his wife.

“Hello,” she said, and he could hear the quiver in her voice. But she didn’t raise her head from the book that was lying on the table in front of her. What has happened now? he wondered.

“I am very happy to be able to rise from my pallet and come to see you,” he said softly. “Are you not happy to see me, also?”

“Yes, of course I am,” she said, hiding her face in the long fall of her black hair. “Although I do still sleep right beside you.”

“It has not been the same, ma vhenan,” Abelas said, still wondering what was wrong between them. “Although you have been beside me, I feel as if we have been leagues apart.”

“I … please …” she said, and he could hear the sobs in her voice.

“What have I done?” he asked, confused and uncertain. And still, he was determined to find out what was bothering her.

“No, no,” she said, finally turning so that he could see her face. “It wasn’t you. It was me. All me! I failed. I couldn’t protect you.”

Laughing, he pulled her toward him, forcing her to rise or fall onto the floor. When she was standing beside him, he lifted her into his lap and held her tightly, her head lying safely on his shoulder.

“No, you have to let me tell you that I’m sorry,” she was saying, her voice hiccoughing between her sobs. “I chose to protect myself and our baby. I couldn’t keep you from being harmed.”

Bringing his hand up to play with the long tendrils of her hair, he said, “I would have made the same decision — if I had been able to tell you what to do when I was jumping onto that monster. And would you have had recriminations for me if I had failed to kill it?”

“Of course not!”

“But I would have failed to protect you. By your reasoning, I would have felt equally as guilty as you.” He slid his hand down her arm and let his fingers entwine with hers. “We are for each other, ma vhenan. I protect you, and you protect me. But most importantly, together, we will protect our future.” Abelas felt Rhoane’s lips press against his neck, and he released her hand to stroke his against the soft curves of their growing child. It was so good to hold her to him again, to feel her heart as it beat against him and the gentle waft of her breath drifting over his skin. This was his home, his place of safety and hope: he would fight to his dying breath for it and for her.

His hands trailed across her body, and he could feel the heat of her sighs against his cheek and throat. Her contours were a mysterious delight to him, and he let his fingers trace the softness and sinew of the shape that seemed new each time he touched her. Warm against his face, her breath came a little faster, and she raised one arm to that she could wrap her hand around his neck and stroke her fingers along one long edge of his ear. He slipped his fingers under her chin and lifted her face to kiss her.

“Rhoane,” her sister, Jaya, yelled from the other end of the room.

As if they were one person, he heard his wife groan at the interruption at the same time that he did. And while he released her lips, he didn’t let her slip from his lap or escape his embrace. He pressed her head back down against his shoulder and waited.

“What is it?” she called back.

Jaya bounded down the aisle and up to the opposite side of the table, followed by Fenris, who moved down the passage at a more leisurely pace. Abelas looked up at the lyrium-branded elf, who extended his hand toward him. Reaching out, he clasped the offered forearm in an ancient greeting between warriors of the Tevinter Imperium. He smiled crookedly at Fenris, knowing everything that the gesture meant and how difficult it had been for the elf to offer it. Greeting him as a brother warrior, the lyrium-branded elf had acknowledged a debt to Abelas— that Fenris knew what his actions had meant during their battle. He had also sworn himself to protect those whom Abelas loved and protected himself.

Not that Abelas hadn’t made the same promise when he had accepted the hand that the lyrium-branded elf had extended. But his own commitment to Rhoane had already made that decision for him. Still, it was good to acknowledge the intertwining of their lives and their duties.

“Well, you look awfully comfortable,” Jaya teased her sister, bringing a hip up so that she could lean against the table and swing a booted foot to and fro. “Stroud sent one of his Wardens to tell you that they’ve closed off the last tunnel. The only one left is the hallway that will lead us back to the surface, and we’ll take care of that on our way out.”

“Good,” his wife said without lifting her head from his shoulder. “Did the Grey Warden return to Stroud already?”

Jaya shook her head. “She brought back something that they caught for a meal,” she answered. “She was skinning it when we came in to report to you.”

“Fine,” Rhoane said, sliding from his lap and going over to the books that were piled on this side of the table. “When she’s finished with that, can you ask her to return to Stroud? Tell him to bring everyone back to this position. And then I need to see him, Bethany, and Anders, as well as the two of you, so that we can plan our next step.”

“Not the Grey Wardens?” Fenris asked.

His wife shook her head. “I need to talk to Stroud about them before they can be included in our discussion. I think it will be better to send most of them back to the Wardens with information about what we’ve been doing. And I’d rather have them make that decision with Stroud than have me just randomly assign those duties to them.”

“Fine,” her sister said. “Anything else?”

The Commander of the Grey shook her head. “I’m going to have to write two very annoying letters for the Grey Wardens to carry back with them, and I guess I’ve put it off for as long as I can.”

“Annoying for whom?” Jaya asked lightly. “For you to write or for them to read?”

Rhoane’s smile quirked across her face. “Both. I have to tell them enough to keep them away until we’re done with what we’re going to do, but also not reveal what our next steps are. At least it will take some amount of time for the Grey Wardens to return to their fortresses.”

“And for us to travel, I assume,” Fenris said. “Can you tell us where we’re going yet?”

Abelas noticed that his wife was staring down at the books in front of her, which he knew was unusual for her. She was a very honest person and would meet your eye even to deliver the worst news. He sighed: they must be going someplace very unpleasant after this. But is there a place more unpleasant than the Deep Roads? he asked himself.

“I’d rather wait until everyone is here to discuss it,” she said, finally raising her eyes to Fenris’s at the end of her statement. “Then we’ll be able to examine all our options.”

“If there are any,” the lyrium-branded elf replied. “You seem to have spent a great deal of time making decisions that will affect us all.”

Rhoane sighed. “I know, and I’m sorry. But I might be the only one with enough experience with all of the aspects of this problem to be able to solve it. I’ll give any one of you the opportunity to choose your own path in this. I won’t force you to believe that my solution is the best.”

“All right,” Jaya said, “we’ll get everyone gathered and be back as soon as we can.”

Abelas sat with his wife, his head slipping to the side as exhaustion snuck up on him again, while she composed her letters. He awoke to the sound of voices in the shaperate and straightened in his chair. Reaching out to squeeze his hand, his wife smiled at him and rose to her feet.

“Okay,” Jaya said as she resumed the position she had taken on the table earlier — one hip resting on the surface and one leg swinging freely from side to side. “This is everyone. Three of the other Grey Wardens have chosen to return to their outpost, and two have volunteered to take your message to Weisshaupt. One of the mages is staying with us.”

“And you are …?” his wife asked the young man who was standing with the others on the opposite side of the table.

“Clement, Commander,” the mage replied. “From Orlais.”

“Welcome,” Rhoane replied. “We’ll be happy to have you along, if you choose to remain with us.”

“I … I’ve made my choice,” he said to her in a clear, strong voice. Abelas watched as the young man’s eyes slid to look at Anders and then darted away. The elf smiled to himself and looked over at his wife.

“I’m not going to accept anyone’s decision as final until everyone knows what we are going to be doing,” she began. “We’ve finished all of the work we came here to do. We’ve collapsed all the access routes to the Red Thaig and defeated the creature that was ‘singing’ to the darkspawn — and anyone else who would listen.”

“Anyone who had been touched by the red lyrium, you mean,” Jaya added.

“Or the darkspawn taint. We Grey Wardens heard the song in the Red Thaig,” Rhoane said.

“You never told me that,” the Champion of Kirkwall said, frowning over at both of her sisters.

“It was a good tool to use to track the creature,” the Commander of the Grey replied.

Bethany added, “The Grey Wardens also knew when it was dying, because the rhythm of the song was — broken. And then it stopped.”

Jaya shook her head. “I guess I have to give you that one, but I’d really like it if you wouldn’t keep Grey Warden secret powers from us. Especially since most of you already have enough secret powers being mages.”

Abelas heard his wife laugh, but he knew that her sister had made an important point. No matter how honest a mage seemed, people would still be suspicious, because they would never know everything that he or she could do with their connection to the elements. He looked up and saw Fenris shifting from foot to foot: the lyrium-branded elf believed that there was no depth to which a mage wouldn’t sink to achieve a goal, and he knew that Jaya had spoken the truth, too.

“Sensing darkspawn and dying yo-,” Anders started and then stopped himself. “Dying in the Deep Roads. That’s about it for us Grey Wardens.”

Abelas saw his wife frown over at the man who had healed him. He grimaced back at her. Obviously, she had been speaking with him about everything that had happened before they had met her sister in Antiva City. But Abelas could not be sure that the other young mage, Clement, knew as well. It seemed his wife would have even more explaining to do.

“The next task I want to accomplish,” Rhoane began, “has to do with this mural. If I’m reading the carving correctly, ancient magic wielders from Tevinter helped destroy the connection that dwarves had to the Fade. You can see here that an eluvian — an ancient elven portal mirror — is involved somehow.” She pointed to the carving that had been hidden behind a bookcase. “I believe that the magic users from Tevinter knew or know how to sever a being from their ability to dream.”

“Isn’t that unnatural?” Stroud asked, his fingers tightening on the pommel of the sword at his side.”

“It may have made the dwarves less … human …” Rhoane admitted, “but they also seem to have adjusted.”

“If we don’t walk in the Fade,” Clement asked uncertainly, “how can we find the demons for our final test in the Circle Tower?”

“More importantly,” Rhoane replied, “if we don’t walk in the Fade, how can demons find mages at all?”

Abelas looked around the semi-circle of faces as a kind of awareness came to each of the people facing his wife. It was like watching little wavelets wash across the sand, and each person’s reaction was slightly different. In the end, it was confusion that every person reflected back to the Commander of the Grey.

“Unfortunately, the only place where we might find the information that would help us understand how to do all of this,” Rhoane continued, “is the Tevinter Imperium.”


	23. Part Two • Chapter Eleven • Rhoane Amell

The quiet of the shaperate exploded around her, surrounding her with a cacophany of voices, all demanding that she answer their questions that instant. Sinking down into the chair behind her, Rhoane let her head rest in her hands, propped up by her elbows on the level surface. Finally, one voice rose above the others: Anders’s.

“What do you think you’re trying to do?” Anders growled at her, white flashes crackling across his skin. “Isn’t this just one more thing to make us even more despised? One more way that people will look at us as ‘unnatural.’ What are you doing to us?”

“I’m trying to give you hope,” Rhoane said in a loud voice, rising to her feet and leaning forward against the table. “I’m trying to give you and all other mages another way to live. I’m trying to save you from yourself, Anders.”

“I … But … You can’t save me,” Anders replied. “I’m damned for all eternity. Nothing you or anyone else could ever do will change that.”

“I’ve changed more things in this world with less actual evidence that it would be possible, Anders.”

“But you’re talking about severing every mage’s connection to the Fade. Like Stroud said, it’s unnatural.”

“No,” her husband said from his chair beside her. “It would only be different. Like a slave receiving his freedom. He may know of those who are still bound, but he will not throw away the gift he has received simply because he cannot be like the others.”

“And Rhoane hasn’t said anything about dividing every mage from the Fade,” Fenris said quietly. “It could be used selectively.”

“For those who can’t control their abilities,” Clement said, comprehension dawning on his face. “You could separate them from the Fade instead of making them tranquil, so that they wouldn’t ever risk being possessed by demons.”

“Yes, that’s my hope,” Rhoane said. “But there’s something else.”

“Some other way to make them all hate mages more?” Anders asked in a bitter voice.

“I’m hoping that we can use a variation of this process,” she said quietly, “to return Justice to the Fade.”

The air around her stilled, and she almost would swear that she could hear the dust as it drifted through the blood-red light around her. She looked over at Anders and watched as shame flitted across his face. She’d never meant to confront his with this information in this manner, but he had forced her hand. Seeing a blush steal up through his cheeks, she was certain that Anders had believed that no one could care enough for him to take the kind of risk she had just proposed. But he was her Grey Warden recruit: she was responsible for the person he had become. She would do anything that she could to fix him.

“Like I said,” Rhoane said steadily, “in order to discover whether any of this is at all possible, we’ll have to go to the Tevinter Imperium. To Minrathous, the capital city. We’ll have to find some kind of record of the Imperium’s participation in breaking the connection between the dwarves and the Fade.”

“The Archons will have private libraries that might hold such information,” Fenris said, crossing his arms over his chest.

She heard her husband shifting in his seat beside her and looked in his direction.

“Or the Black Divine,” he said quietly.

The Black Divine. The man who sat in the controlling seat of the Chantry in Tevinter. Not a woman, like in the rest of Thedas, but a man, the very voice of the Maker himself. She nodded her head and looked at the others across the table.

“I can’t ask any of you to make this trip with me,” she said. “I know I can’t make Abelas leave my side, because I’ve tried that before. Jaya, you and Fenris don’t have to come, because its probably too much of a risk to take him back into Tevinter, even with the papers that Zevran forged for us.”

She saw her sister and the lyrium-branded elf exchange a look and the small nod of Fenris’s head. “We’ve already discussed it,” Jaya said strongly, “and we’re coming.”

“I just hope we run into some slavers who still think they can claim my reward,” Fenris growled.

“If you’re both going,” Bethany said, “then I am, too. Three sisters are better than two any day.”

“Stroud?” Rhoane asked, looking at the Warden-Lieutenant. She saw his eyes shift to Bethany and then his head nodded briefly.

“Anders, that leaves you and …” she started, only to be interrupted by the young mage.

“I’ve always wanted to see Minrathous!” Clement exclaimed.

“It’s a cesspool of every sort of magic that you can imagine,” Fenris muttered. “You’ll love it there.”

Walking around the table, Rhoane came up to stand in front of Anders. He was staring at the floor and refused to meet her eyes for long moments while she studied his face.

“You don’t have to come with us, Anders,” she said in a soft voice. “I can tell you where the eluvian that I want to use is, and we can supply you for the journey. You can travel there and wait for us to come to you, after we have discovered the process. If you will feel safer, you can let us finish this part of the journey and then bring what we have found to you.”

“No,” he said, his voice unsteady. “I can’t let you …”

Raising her hand, she made a motion to show everyone else in the room that she would like for them to leave. She watched from the side of her eyes as Fenris and Bethany helped her husband back down the aisle between the shelves.

When she and the mage were alone, Rhoane sighed and reached out to take Anders’s arm. “You have to let me do this for you,” she said in a whisper. “I failed you when I wasn’t there to prevent you from accepting Justice into your being. I am responsible for the man that you have become.”

Anders shook his head, but she continued. “By accepting responsibility for what has happened to you, I can somehow try to make amends. It’s the right thing for me to do. It is the just thing for me to do.”

Anders fell to his knees at her feet, and she knelt beside him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and holding him gently to her. His body shook with the power of the sobs that he struggled to control, and she smoothed her hand across his back to try to soothe him. Eventually, his sorrow subsided.

“I … I don’t deserve …” he started.

“I’m not asking you to be worthy of me or my actions, Anders,” she murmured. “I’m the Hero of Ferelden, after all. Not many can measure up to that.”

She heard him give a hiccoughing laugh and leaned away from him so that she could look into his face. He looked at her shyly, unwilling to let even the tiniest sliver of his hopefulness show in his face. Smiling gently, she asked, “Will you come with us or go ahead and wait?”

“A mage in Tevinter?” he said ironically. “How could you possibly keep me away?”

She nodded. “We’ll have to disguise you. Abelas will know something we can do to change your hair color, and maybe we could give you a goatee instead of this scraggly brush of a beard?”

“I’d wear a dress for you, if this will actually work,” Anders said, but his haunted look belied the glibness of his words.

“It would have to be a very pretty dress,” she answered, remembering a moment when Alistair had said much the same thing. When Anders frowned at her, she shook her head and asked instead, “Could you let me speak with Justice, if it’s possible?”

“I don’t …” Anders started, but then the blazing white eyes were looking at her, and she knew that Justice had taken control of the body.

“Commander! I hope you are not giving this man false hope.”

“I wouldn’t do that to him,” she replied. “It would be unjust.”

“Then you really think,” the spirit said uncertainly, “that it could be possible to return me to the Fade.”

“Yes, Justice. I believe that it’s possible.”

“Is there something … some way that I can help?” he asked.

“I know that this may be difficult,” she said evenly, “but you will have to be patient. With me and with Anders. With the entire process. It may take more time than you are willing to give us, but you have to try. I swear to you: I will do everything within my power to return you to the place where you truly belong.”

Anders’s head nodded. “I give you my oath, Commander, that I will try to be patient. But living with this awareness of the passage of time chafes me.”

“I understand,” she responded. “Is there anything specifically you need to know before we embark on this new task?”

“No,” Justice replied. “I must put my trust in you, Commander.”

Nodding, Rhoane said, “Thank you. I’ll do my very best.”


	24. Part Three • Chapter One • Fenris

Fenris leaned against the wall on the far side of the taproom, his eyes warily traveling between the door at the front of the building and the one that led down from the bedrooms above. It had been his suggestion to begin stopping at inns along the way: when they did, the people who were traveling more quickly than they could would carry the story that two powerful mages, their apprentices, and their bodyguards were on their way to the capitol. When they had discovered in this town that the news of their coming had preceded them, they knew that the plan was working. But it only made the lyrium-branded elf more uneasy.

Gossip was a slave-catcher’s best resource. Fenris knew that there were only so many more days that they could travel without meeting a group of them — or slavers, who simply stole what belonged to others and passed it along to the highest bidder. He knew that he was the bait to spread the story of their journey to Minrathous: the fact that no one had directly questioned them yet made him tense. It hadn’t been that long since his former master, Danarius, had still been looking for him, and slave-catchers were the last to forget a profitable bounty.

He heard the front door of the inn open and looked up to see Abelas entering the taproom. Following the elf with his eyes, he saw the Commander’s husband stop beside Stroud and speak quietly. Fenris clenched and unclenched his hands and watched the Warden-Lieutenant and the red-haired elf leave the taproom together.

He sighed softly and readied himself: Abelas had brought the information that he had been awaiting. Slavers were on their way to the inn.

When Hawke rose from the table where she was sitting with her sisters, he let his eyes track her as she crossed the floor toward him. He frowned at her: there was no need for her to come up to his side. He was perfectly capable of handling the slave catchers, and he had meant for her to stay with her sisters when the people hunting for him came.

“What are you doing, Hawke?” he growled at her.

“Rhoane thinks it will be easier for you to keep at least some of the slavers alive,” she smirked at him, “if we’re all not helping you survive. You do remember that we need at least one of them to escape to Minrathous, don’t you?”

“I sincerely doubt,” he murmured, “that I would forget a vital point of my own plan.”

“I know,” she said softly in front of him. “I just wanted to wish you luck … tell you to be safe. If I can’t be here to help, I have to at least know that you’re coming back to our tent.”

“Nothing will keep me away,” he returned, resisting the urge to wrap his hand around the back of her neck and pull her against him so that he could press his lips to hers. “Now go away before I forget what I’m supposed to do.”

“I’ll be waiting for you,” she said and strolled toward the back of the taproom where he knew there was a exit to a stables behind the building. He tore his eyes away from the sight of her walking away from him. Focus, he told himself, and not on her shapely rear.

Shifting his shoulders against the walk, he looked back over at the mages who were seated together at a table near the fire. Rhoane had slipped easily into her pretense — she was a powerful mage after all — and she had been forced to play the same role when she and her husband had been Tevinter previously. Although the attitude seemed to come naturally to her, she always apologized for her words and actions when they were certain that they were alone in their camps. Even though they had all agreed to the subterfuge and understood why she did what she did.

It had been harder to convince Anders to play a role in their masquerade. He was around the same age as the Commander of the Grey, and it would seem inappropriate for him to be anything other than Rhoane’s peer in power and skill. Abelas had been able to create a dye from plant roots and herbs that had turned the mage’s hair a deep brown, and his beard and hair had been trimmed to a length more appropriate for a magister. He still held back when they encountered larger groups of people or had to go into a taproom, like the one they were in now, but he made the effort to be part of the illusion. It was all that Fenris could ask of him.

It had been easier to deal with the other two mages: they became apprentices to their elders — Bethany for Rhoane and Clement for Anders. As apprentices, they were expected to be less skilled than their masters, which Fenris was hoping would make anyone who attacked them underestimate what the two younger mages could do.

He marveled at the change that he could see in himself. In the mistrustful darkness of his past, he would never have been willing to believe that one mage would protect him, let alone four. But he knew it was the truth of his new reality. He trusted these mages to do whatever it would take to protect him or heal him after the coming battle. The Commander of the Grey, the two young Grey Wardens — even Anders, the bane of his existence in Kirkwall — they would keep him safe so that he could return to Hawke. They made it possible for him to live for her.

He heard the click of both of the doors of the ground floor of the inn and pulled himself away from the wall. The mages seemed to continue their conversation, ignoring the newcomers just as they should and leaving Fenris to assess the threat. Three armored warriors and two mages came in through the front door, and a mage and a warrior walked in from the back. The slave-hunter mages gathered around one table and ordered drinks from the welcoming barkeep. One of the warriors crossed in front of Fenris and took a position down the wall from him, leaning against one shoulder and resting his hand on the pommel of his sword.

“What a beauty!” one of the slaver mages exclaimed, seeming to just have noticed Fenris standing near the wall. He crossed to him and reached out, intending to take his chin in his hand and examine his features.

“Don’t touch me,” he growled at the same moment that Rhoane spoke.

“Don’t touch him,” she said in a loud voice. “He’s mine, and not for sale.”

The mage turned to face the Commander of the Grey. He smiled brightly and crossed to Rhoane’s side.

“Are you certain?” he asked, his voice edgy and excited. “I would offer you very good coin for him.”

“No,” the Commander said briefly. “Do not ask again.”

Fenris crossed the room to stand behind Rhoane, as if he felt that she was being threatened by the slaver. The man’s eyes followed him as he approached, and he took a step away from the table when he positioned himself as a guardian for the Commander of the Grey.

“I wouldn’t want to question your honesty,” the hunter-mage said, “but I have information that this slave belongs to a magister from Tevinter.”

“And?” Rhoane said, finally looking up at the hunter.

“And I intend to take him in for the bounty that’s been placed on his head.”

“No,” the Commander repeated.

The slaver frowned. “You have no proof …”

Shaking her head, Rhoane replied, “You are incorrect. I have documents.”

Crossing his arms over his chest, the slave-hunter looked at the others gathered with Rhoane at her table. Fenris could almost see him making calculations based on the appearance that the mages presented: two fully empowered magisters and two apprentices. With the hunter-mage’s three casters and five warriors, he would determine that he was in the more powerful position. Fenris flexed his shoulders and waited.

“It think perhaps,” the slaver continued, “that you are unaware of …”

“And I think that perhaps you misunderstand to whom you are speaking.” The Commander of the Grey rose to her feet and turned to face the lyrium-branded elf. “I’m tired of this conversation. Do what you must.”

Fenris grinned wickedly and let his tattoos come alight. Releasing his halberd from the brace, he stepped away from the wall, bringing the weapon down in front of him. As he was stepping to meet the first warrior, Clement slid his chair back into the hunter-mage, causing him to stumble and fall to one knee. The young mage rushed to his feet, apologizing profusely and backing away to Ander’s side. The elf saw the older mage pretend to slap the boy while swinging his staff from its brace and seemingly accidentally striking the warrior who was coming up toward their table, unbalancing his grip on his sword. Clement appeared to lose his footing and fell toward Bethany, who slammed her staff into the ground as if to maintain her footing, sending a shivering shockwave through the floor that set the people in the room reeling.

Fenris leaped away from Rhoane and among the warriors, sweeping his blade through one shield and shearing through another man’s arm. He pressed past the hunters in armor and decapitated a mage who was still reaching over his shoulder for his staff. Spinning on one foot, the lyrium-branded elf slammed the side of his weapon into the back of another armored hunter’s head. The final mage slid to the floor, her skull sliced in two; and two warriors who rushed to flank him, but he rammed the butt of his weapon into one’s knee and sliced open the other’s abdomen. Looking quickly around the room, he stepped up to the hunter-mage who was just regaining his feet and reached toward his chest, his hand shimmering blue-white with the power of the lyrium of his tattoos.

“No!” the man screamed. “Make him stop.”

The Commander of the Grey looked over at the slaver, a disdainful frown on her face. “If you know his reputation, then you should also know that there is very little that I can do to control him.”

The hunter-mage turned his gaze to the elf. “Please. Please,” he begged.

He frowned at him, still seemingly determined to rip his heart from his chest. But Fenris could feel the difference: something was missing. The thing that had driven him for so many years to seek revenge against any mage who crossed his path did not scream at him to end this fool’s life. Instead, there was silence and a kind of intense pity for this man who believed that his was a power that couldn’t be equalled by any other. It was an idiot’s delight: there would always be someone else who knew more or was willing to take more dangerous pathways to achieve his or her goals. This mage was less skilled than dozens of others that he had been forced to destroy; therefore, he was not worth the time or effort.

“Run.” Fenris let the lyrium in his tattoos glow more brightly for a moment, implying that if he were to remain, he didn’t know whether he would be able to stop himself again. “Run back to your masters in Minrathous and tell them that my bounty is revoked.”

The slaver backed toward the door at the front of the inn, his eyes warily locked with Fenris’s own, and slipped out into the waning light of the afternoon sun. The elf battled for a moment with the trilling call for death and destruction that the lyrium in his tattoos sent throughout his body. Finally, he was able to repress his immediate need to destroy; but the need to express the frustration remained. He looked up and saw Stroud and Abelas coming in through the portal that the mage had just exited. Turning on his heel, he stalked out through the hallway to the stable.

Hawke was just coming through the door, and he reached out to grasp her arm in one hand, dragging her after him into the twilight shadow of the barn. The smell of hay and oxen rose up around him, but he ignored it. Pushing Hawke against a darkening wall, he brought his lips against hers, crushing the rose-petal softness of her skin in a desperate attempt to ease the burning frustration inside of him. When her lips opened beneath his, he plundered the warmth of her mouth, driving her back against the harsh-planed wood of the stable with his shoulders and hips. He felt her arms slip around his neck and her fingers twine into his hair, and he started at the jolt of pleasure that raced through him when she tightened her hand, pulling at his scalp. He moaned and released her lips to sink his teeth into the side of her throat, and he heard her gasp in pleasure. It was more than he could bear, and he reached for the fastening of her padded leggings.

He took her there, pressed against the stable wall, almost blinded to all awareness by the need to express the emotion that was burning inside of him. Driving himself into her, he listened to the rapid inhale and exhale of her breath and felt the press of her thighs that were wrapped around his body. In a relieved surprise, he felt her moan her release against his throat. It sent him over the edge, and he struggled to maintain both his and Hawke’s upright position as the driving energy of his need drained away from him.

“Fasta vass,” he cursed as he struggled to regain control over his breathing. “I’m sorry, Hawke.”

She gurgled with laughter and tightened her grip on his neck in reply. “Fenris, both of us express ourselves more easily through action first,” she said quietly, her head leaning against his. “Words always come later.”

He moved so that he could kiss her gently and whispered, “Thank you. But I really wish people would stop making excuses for me.”

She sighed and let her legs slip down to bear her own weight. He held her for a long moment while she found her balance and then stepped away so that both of them could straighten their clothing. When he looked back at her, she was frowning.

“What is it?” he asked, reaching out to take her hand.

“I’m trying to explain it,” she said, rubbing her hand across her forehead. “It’s not that we’re excusing you exactly. It’s more like … we accept it. We know there are things that have happened to you that are beyond our control — things that make you who you are — and we just know that that’s the way things are going to be.”

He shook his head, saying, “But you shouldn’t accept that I took my frustration out on you.”

Hawke smiled crookedly at him. “I love you. And besides, I was completely satisfied with what you did.”

“Still,” he countered, “it was unfair of me to use you so. I shouldn’t … I shouldn’t treat the woman that I love like an object.”

“Honestly?” she questioned him, putting her hands on her hips. “You think I wouldn’t tell you if you had displeased me?”

“Never.” He ran his fingers up through his hair, staring at the straw that rustled at their feet. “You’ve made everything different, Hawke. I was standing in front of a mage, reaching to tear his heart from his chest, and I realized that it didn’t matter. There was no need to end that life, even though he was determined to return me to slavery.”

“Was that difficult for you?” she asked quietly.

Shaking his head, Fenris answered, “That’s the problem. It was easy to let the mage go. It may have been the easiest decision that I’ve ever made. It was the realization … that I wouldn’t ever be the same … a frustration of knowing that the person that I had been was gone … that drove me to you.”

She came up in front of him and wrapped her arms around his neck. Sliding his arms around her waist, he pulled her to him so that her cheek could rest against his.

“As long as you are always driven toward me,” she whispered, bringing her lips to meet his.


	25. Part Three • Chapter Two • Jaya Hawke

“You really think that your former master’s house will still be empty, after all this time?” she asked Abelas as the two of them wandered through the winding streets of Minrathous, the capitol city of Tevinter. It felt good for her to be back in a city after so many months in the Deep Roads and the wilderness — the city was where Hawke’s skills were truly most useful. And there was something about the riotous press of humankind that made her pulse quicken in anticipation. Of what, she wasn’t sure, but this was probably the place that she would find it.

She saw Abelas shrug as he said, “It is as likely as the place having been sold, because it is doubtful that the scholar’s family has intervened. I have no reason to believe that anyone is interested in the house, unless they know about the collection.”

“And how likely do you think that is?” she asked, stepping to the side to avoid a swelling puddle that oozed from beneath the door to a tavern they were passing. “Was anyone close with your former master?”

“No,” the red-haired elf replied, “not even his family. He had no magic, so his family assumed from a young age that he would never rise to a station that could help them in the Imperium. He was trained at the Chantry for a short time, before he ventured out on his own.”

Hawke frowned and rubbed her hand against her forehead. “What about his clients? Would any of them have a reason to believe that he kept valuables in the house?”

“Perhaps,” her sister’s husband replied. “Members of the Imperium are by nature suspicious of each other. It would seem possible that they would doubt my master’s sincerity.” He motioned for her to follow as he turned a corner. “However, his actions were always meant to make them believe that he had supplied them with the best of what he discovered. Also, he was expected to meet the magisters where the magisters chose, not in his own home. I doubt that any of them even know where he lived.” Abelas stopped and looked around a corner. Hawke waited behind him and then followed when he nodded to her.

“The real problem,” he continued, “is their slaves.”

“In what way?” she asked, studying the doorways along the side of the narrowed street. As they walked farther from the center of the capitol — away from the mansions of the magisters and the Chantry — the streets narrowed and the smaller houses crowded in on each other. Each wall was another deepened shadow that could conceal a cutpurse or worse, and her pleasure at returning to a city began to shrink away from her as her natural paranoia reasserted itself. She stopped beside Abelas again as he waited for something, listening as he explained about Tevinter slaves.

“You understand that in Antiva City, Zevran has his Crows,” he said as he stepped onto the narrow street again. “Minrathous has slaves. They are a never-ending source of gossip and cannot be trusted for even the time it takes them to travel from one step to another. They are petty thieves and can be sent to do any task a magister requires, including slaying members of rival families. The slaves know me, and they may raise suspicions among their masters when they discover that we are using the scholar’s home — which I can assure you, they will discover.”

“I assume there’s no way to avoid interacting with the slaves,” she said curiously. “Even if we managed to hide you from their view.”

“I may have some beneficial contacts in the city still,” Abelas answered her, “and there may come a time when we can use them.” He stopped on one side of the street and slipped back into the shadows, motioning for Hawke to follow him. Raising his hand slightly, he pointed to a doorway around the corner from where they were hiding. “The door there,” he said quietly. “If you would please go up and knock on it, you will give us our first indication whether my former master’s house is occupied.”

Nodding, Hawke slipped back the way they had come a bit and then stepped out after a small group of citizens passed her position. She lingered behind them until they rounded another corner, then walked with a business-like assurance up to the door that Abelas had indicated. Lifting the knocker, she let it strike twice and waited.

While she waited, she turned back toward the street and saw Abelas moving among the shadows toward the side of the house. Turning back to the door, she lifted the knocker again and when her summons wasn’t answered, she set off down the street again. When the opportunity presented itself, she blended back into the shadows and followed them to the alleyway beside the scholar’s house. There, she found Abelas holding a ring of keys.

He shook his head as she approached. “The key will not work now. I fear that someone had changed the locking mechanism.”

“Or broken it,” Hawke said, stepping up near the door. “You wouldn’t believe the damage a careless thief can do with a misused set of lockpicks.” Pulling two slender pieces of metal from her boot, she inserted them into the keyhole and manipulated the mechanism until they both heard the latch click. Reaching for the handle, she asked casually, “Is there any reason to assume there might be a trap of some kind on this door?”

The red-haired elf shook his head. “This entrance is for the servants only, and my master would never use it. And as a slave, I have no value as a target for the magisters. The door may be warded to send an alarm to someone if it is opened, but that is not an undesirable outcome for us.”

The Champion reached out and lifted the handle, letting the door fall away and revealing the kitchen beyond. She pushed the door back against the interior wall and looked around the dusty room. Abelas stepped past her and opened the door to a hallway beyond the kitchen, moving to explore more of the house. Closing the door behind her, she manipulated the lock and followed the elf farther into the house.

She found him standing beside the fireplace in a bedchamber. While she watched, he tugged the hearthrug away from the front of the fireplace, sending a little cloud of dust floating through the sunlight that sifted between the planks that covered the windows. Kneeling on the stones, he inserted one of the keys on the ring in his hand into a hole that she hadn’t noticed on the floor. The sound of another click filled the room, and a stone slab beside the door swung away, revealing the room where the scholar had stored his secret collection.

Abelas stepped over the opening and glanced quickly into the room. Looking back Hawke, he asked, “Could you light the bedside candle and bring it to me, please?”

After lighting the taper, the Champion walked into the small room that had been hidden by the secret door. She stared at the upended bookcase and the crushed lantern and wondered what had happened in this small room.

“I cannot see that anyone has discovered this space,” Abelas was saying, shifting some papers from the floor and back up onto the long table that occupied one wall. “Things in here are as we left them when we escaped Minrathous.”

“You mean,” Hawke said, staring at the disorder of the room, “you left if this way?”

Her sister’s husband looked up at her and grinned crookedly. “Perhaps Rhoane can tell you the story. It does not reflect well on me, so I am reluctant to share it. Noble is the great hero of that moment and the one who knocked the shelves over.” Abelas crossed to her side and looked around the room one last time. “I believe that you can return to Rhoane and bring everyone here. I will begin preparing rooms. Unfortunately, some will have to sleep in the slave’s quarters.”

Walking into the bedchamber, Hawke replied, “I don’t think anyone’s going to mind, Abelas. Most of us will just be happy to be sleeping in an actual bed again.”

She snuffed the candle and returned it to its place on the nightstand, watching as the elf pressed the door back into place. “Are you certain you won’t come back with me? We can just lock this place up and go …”

They both heard the knock at the same time, and Abelas frowned over at her.

“Should I come?” she asked.

Nodding, he sighed and started toward the the kitchen. “I fear that we have no choice, Hawke. As much as we have tried to avoid detection, it has found us nevertheless.”

She followed through the door and hitched herself up on the table, her foot swinging indolently as she waited for the elf to open the door. When the portal was barely cracked, a short human with a pointed face pushed his way through the opening. He stopped short when he saw Hawke sitting on the table and turned to face Abelas.

“My friend!” the rat-faced man exclaimed. “It seems an age since I have seen you.”

“I have been away,” the elf answered, keeping the door open as an invitation for the man to leave. “My master sent me ahead to prepare the house for guests that he has invited to remain here while he is researching artifacts in Ferelden.”

“Guests?” the man asked. “But my master had been hoping that some newer acquisitions were available. It has been some time …”

Abelas shook his head. “I was sent ahead — again — to prepare the house. Powerful mages are coming to be my master’s guest, and I cannot delay my preparations a moment longer. I expect them to arrive in the mid-afternoon.”

The man looked over at Hawke, and she recoiled at the suggestive leer that crossed his face. “Has he purchased you a new plaything? Something for your …”

In an instant, the Champion was beside the man, the sharp blade of one of her axes pressing against his throat. “I belong to no man,” she growled at the human slave. “I accompanied the elf because my employers demanded it; otherwise, I would be protecting them as is my duty. Luckily, they have other bodyguards who are equally a deadly as I. Would you like a demonstration?”

The man shook his head, his lip trembling as his eyes darted between her and the elf who stood holding the door open. Slowly, Hawke withdrew her blade from his throat and slid it back over her shoulder. “I suggest you leave so that I can fetch my masters. They will be very unhappy to learn that a slave delayed their coming into the city.”

“No, no, of course not,” the man said, waving his hands in the space between him and Hawke. “I will take my leave. But if you find that the scholar has sent anything that would be of interest to my master, you must inform me.” With that, he scurried from the room, and Abelas stepped out into the alley to watch him hurry away.

When the elf reentered the room, she started to speak, but Abelas motioned for her to remain quiet. Gesturing for her to follow him, he led her down the hallway into a small room at the back of the house.

“I can only be certain we will not be overheard in these quarters,” he explained. “You should go immediately and bring everyone. The news of their arrival will begin to spread now that a slave has the information.”

“And that’s good because …?” she asked.

“There are two ways to gain an advantage in Tevinter: curry favor or intimidate,” he said softly. “We do not have the time for the first option; therefore, we will intimidate those who may be able to provide us with the information we need. Having the slaves spreading a rumor about powerful mages coming to the city will be the beginning.” Hawke saw him look around the small room and then sigh. “All we need now is the mages.”


	26. Part Three • Chapter Three • Stroud

The Warden-Lieutenant pulled at the belt that held his sword in place, trying to find a more natural feeling position for the blade. The hang of his weapon had never been an issue when he was in his blue and white of the Grey Wardens, but among them, they had decided that he, Bethany, and Clement would have to forego their uniforms. Grey Wardens did not protect citizens, no matter how powerful they were supposed to be: Grey Wardens fought the Blight.

Perhaps, when he had fulfilled his commitment to the Commander of the Grey and the Champion of Kirkwall, he could consider personal protection. Or maybe the Grey Wardens could work to become something else — something equally as worthy as spending hundreds of years defending all the peoples of a land from the depredations of an intermittent curse — a curse that hadn’t become active for generations between each occurrence and would never become active again. There were few commitments that he could make that would be as meaningful, but he might happen upon one.

He shrugged against the weight of his shield across his shoulders and looked over at where Bethany was walking with her sister and the other two mages. It was difficult to see her out of her uniform again — it reminded him of that moment when he had taken her in his arms and carried her from the Deep Roads, hoping against hope that they could induct her into the Grey Wardens before the taint in her blood took her life. An intense sense of foreboding gripped him as he looked at her, and he pulled his eyes away from her face to examine the roadway in front of them.

As much as he had hated being with her in the Deep Roads, this city pressed in on him even more. He expected that at any minute they would be confronted and challenged, and he could feel himself grinding his teeth together as they continued at a much-too-leisurely pace. He wished for whatever multiple time that they would simply move along, arrive at the house that Hawke had told them was available, and be safe for a long, quiet moment.

Maybe, he thought, I’m just getting too old for this. Maybe when all this is over, I will make that final trip into the Deep Roads, alone … and meet my fate.

He heard Bethany laugh and looked over, accidentally meeting her eye. He felt his heart trip in his chest, and a smile involuntarily spread across his lips. Oh, Maker, except for that, he would leave now and lose himself in the depths. Stroud battled with the uneven beat of his heart, working to still its throbbing because the girl had smiled at him. He was a fool — loving Bethany at this time of his life was ridiculous.

“Stroud?” He heard her voice calling to him and focused on her face again. Clenching his teeth, he tried to push down the rush of shame that flooded through him. He walked up to her side and nodded to her.

She extended her hand, and he unconsciously reached toward her, starting when she pressed her hand against his, transferring the few coins in her fingers into his palm. They stood together as the rest of their party moved on, and Stroud watched them pass curiously.

“My sister has remembered that the keeper of this shop has a reputation as an incredible gossip,” she murmured, waving vaguely in the direction of an herbalist on the same side of the street where they were standing. “She wants me to play the impatient apprentice for the benefit of the owner.” Bethany peeked up at him from under her bangs, and he could feel the shiver that ran through him at the impishness of her gaze. He frowned over at her, and she continued. “I … uh … Rhoane said that you should come as my protector.”

“Very well,” he said, moving along the street with her and reaching to open the portal when they had arrived at the shop. He followed her through the door.

“I don’t understand why she feels that way,” Bethany pretended to complain as they crossed the threshold. “She has said more than once that I am at least the equal to any other apprentice that she has taught. What is she waiting for?”

Stroud shook his head and grunted noncommittally, trying to enter into her enjoyment of spreading a lie about her sister and their friends. But that niggling scrape of uncertainty touched him again, and he couldn’t relax into her pleasure. It was good for him, he thought, that he was tasked with being her bodyguard. Silent would be just as effective an approach for that role.

He watched as she stepped close to the herbalist’s counter and asked to see specific plant samples. She continued to complain to him about Rhoane’s supposed mistreatment of her and unwillingness to release her apprentice. Stroud responded with low-pitched grunts, crossing his arms and leaning against the counter as Bethany ran her fingers through the herbs spread out on colorful little cloths.

“All right,” she finally said, narrowing her purchases and reaching into a pocket in her coat. She withdrew her hand and exclaimed, “Maker’s breath! That’s the final … how can she send me to make purchases for her without providing me with the coin?”

Stroud snorted and looked across the counter at the owner. She was hanging on every word that passed from Bethany’s lips as if trying to catalog what was happening at that moment in her shop. He glanced back at his fellow Grey Warden and found that she was staring at him.

“What?” he asked, tinging his voice with impatience.

“She’s expecting these herbs. You have to give me the coin for them.”

“I do not,” he said sternly. “If you can’t remember even the most basic necessities, then maybe you should remain an apprentice.”

She frowned thunderously at him and stamped her foot. Stroud laughed at her, like a man amused by the behavior of an unruly child, and shook his head.

“If you will give me the coin …” she suggested, taking a step closer to him, her eyes locked with his. Leaning forward, she pressed her breasts invitingly against the arms that were crossed over his chest. It’s only a game to her, he reminded himself as a jolt of desire rushed through him. A silly role to play for their attentive audience. “If you give me the coin, I will take you with me when I am dismissed. As my personal bodyguard.”

He swallowed hard and reached out one hand to wrap it around her arm. Without thinking, he clenched his fingers tightly into her flesh, casually bruising the delicate softness of her. With his other hand, he reached into his purse and placed coins on the counter, never letting his gaze stray from hers. She smiled brilliantly up at him and looked over at the shopkeeper, breaking the spell of her eyes over him. Letting his hand relax, he dropped it to his side.

A game, he told himself again. A game that she had just won.

She accepted the carefully wrapped plant cuttings and handed them to Stroud to carry. Calling her thanks to the shopkeeper, she walked into the street, waiting for him to follow her and striding toward their friends at his side.

Looking at her from the corner of his eye, he saw her rub the place on her arm that he had bruised with his fingers. A wash of shame ran through him, and he said softly, “I’m sorry, Bethany.”

“For this?” she scoffed, waving her hand toward the already purpling flesh. “It’s my own fault. I should have known better than to tease you so. It was unforgivable.”

“You were enjoying your game,” he said in return. “I believe the shopkeeper is convinced that you are very unhappy with the length of your apprenticeship.”

“That’s the problem, Stroud,” she said, stopping in the street far enough away from their friends that they wouldn’t be overheard. “I know you think I’m too young or just a silly girl, but I know that every moment we spend here is a danger. I know that none of this is a game. For any of us. You most of all, because you don’t have any magic.”

Her earnest brown eyes looked up into his, and he swallowed again, this time for a completely different reason. Instead of his body raging in response to hers, his heart leaped forward to beat at a breakneck speed. “I can safeguard myself, Bethany,” he told her in a low voice. “And I swear on everything that I hold as sacred that I’ll safeguard you as well.”

“I …” she started, looking away down the street. “I know that you will. Thank you.”

Looking over his shoulder, he saw the rest of their party begin to move away from the long row of shops. “We should go before we’re lost. I’ve never been to Minrathous before.”

“Rhoane says that the scholar’s house can be a little difficult to find, too,” she said, moving down the street after her sisters. Stroud maintained his place at her side, stealing sidelong looks at her face whenever he could. Maker, she was beautiful! Young and vibrant, anything that a man could wish for in a bride. A man her own age. A man completely unlike him.

They rejoined their friends, Bethany returning her place between her older sisters. To him, it was like seeing a cultured rose growing among wildflowers. His Bethany outshone even her beautiful sisters — at least in his eyes. Maker! he thought to himself, my Bethany. Stop yourself now, fool, before you’ve gone too far.

After following many winding streets, Hawke brought them to the scholar’s residence, where Abelas was waiting to open the door — for the mages. Hawke, Fenris, and he were led around to a side entrance for the building in a shadowy alley. But even as they entered, he saw Bethany again, standing next to the fire that was crackling brightly in the kitchen, speaking with her sister, Rhoane, in a low voice.

“Welcome to my master’s home,” the elf said to them in an even voice. “If you will follow me, I will show you where you may rest and refresh yourself after your journey.”


	27. Part Three • Chapter Four • Rhoane Amell

The Commander of the Grey wandered restlessly through the hallways of the silent house, the darkness of the night clinging to her like a second skin. She breathed deeply, trying to calm the thundering of her mind, which would not stop, would not allow her to sleep.

They were so close.

They had been in the city for weeks now, and at last, yesterday, they had been allowed to schedule an audience with the Black Divine. This morning, they would walk into the audience chamber of the head of the Tevinter Chantry and make their demands of him. Rhoane expected their request to be dismissed out of hand, but they had other options. She just hoped that everyone was ready for the challenge.

Because it looked like she wouldn’t be with them.

She paused as her body responded to the baby’s demand to enter the world, trying to allow herself to relax until the pain had passed. Since the beginning of humankind, she told herself calmly, women have been bringing new life into the world. It’s too bad one of those women isn’t here now, the other half of her mind answered sarcastically.

When the pain had eased, she continued down the hall to the door to Anders’s room and rapped lightly on it. She listened to the strapping on the bed creak and the gentle whisper of cloth while she leaned against the frame of the doorway. The portal slipped quietly open, and her eyes met Anders’s very groggy gaze.

“Commander?” he said in a whisper. “Is it the baby?”

“Yes and no,” she answered, smiling slightly at him. “Could you fetch Jaya and meet me in the kitchen, please?”

Nodding, Anders passed into the hall and hurried away. Stepping up to the next door, she again knocked and waited until Bethany appeared. Unfortunately, her body chose that moment to send arrows of pain through her body, and she was forced to gasp in her breath instead of greet her sister.

“Rhoane! What are you doing up at this hour?” her sister asked her.

When her pain had passed, she smiled weakly and joked, “Trying to bring the next generation of the Amell/Hawke family into the world, I think. But I need to talk to some of you in the kitchen, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course not,” her sister answered. “I’ll be there in a moment.”

Rhoane continued into the kitchen where Stroud was building up the fire. He looked up, and she met his gaze curiously.

“I was awake when your husband passed me to fetch the midwife,” he explained. Rising, he crossed to her side. “Is there anything I can do for you, Commander?”

“Maker, yes! A volunteer,” she crowed with simulated pleasure. “You have this baby for me, and I’ll go face the wrath of the Black Divine.”

Stroud laughed loudly, and just at that moment, Rhoane saw Bethany step into the room. A confused frown flitted across her sister’s face, and the Commander could understand why. The Warden-Lieutenant had been nothing if not taciturn since he and her sister had joined them in the Deep Roads — since he had kissed the girl, and she had slapped him. To see him laughing after so many weeks was startling, and Bethany’s expression showed both how surprised and pleased she was to see her commanding officer express any emotion at all. Rhoane walked toward the fireplace and turned her back on the two Grey Wardens.

“What are you doing up, Stroud?” Bethany asked, and her sister could hear a note of edgy concern in her voice. Rhoane resisted the temptation to watch the two out of the corner of her eyes: they would resolve their conflicts in one way or another. All she could do was hope for the best result for everyone.

“Old soldiers’ habits die hard,” he said quietly, moving toward the table to hold a chair for Bethany to seat herself in. “I was to be awake in an hour or so anyway, since those of us who cannot use magic have deemed it necessary to maintain some kind of guarding awareness even here in the capital.”

Rhoane heard her sister seat herself and looked over at the two Grey Wardens. Bethany was looking up at Stroud, one of her hands covering his where it rested on the back of her chair. “I hadn’t realized that you were still on guard during the nights,” she said, squeezing his fingers slightly. “I should share that duty, you know.”

He shook his head at her, but the Commander of the Grey saw him remove his hand from under hers. “You mages have another battle to prepare for,” he said solemnly.

Bethany dropped her hand to her lap, following it with her eyes. Her sister could see the little flash of rejection slip across her face. Her little sister wanted so to be included in everything that happened around her, but Stroud was right. The girl had more important things to prepare for.

Anders walked in at that moment, followed closely by Clement, who was still pulling his cloak around his shoulders. The older mage looked over at Rhoane and grinned ruefully. “I tried not to awaken him, but the boy has ears like a Mabari.”

“I don’t mean to intrude …” Clement tried to apologize, but Rhoane shook her head at him.

“It’s all right, Clement,” she said, taking a turn around the room as the pain swelled in her body. “We have to adjust our plans.”

“What?” Jaya asked, stepping into the room followed closely by Fenris. “Why do we need to adjust?”

“Really, Jaya,” Bethany said sarcastically. “As if there could be …”

“I just got here, Bethany,” her sister said at almost the same time. “And if you think …”

“Please,” Rhoane said, gripping the edge of the table in front of her against another wave of pain. She was startled when Fenris stepped up to her side and placed one of his hands over hers.

“How can I help you?” he asked softly.

Smiling weakly, she teased, “Could you use those abilities that your tattoos give you and just deliver this baby now? Then we could simply skip this entire adjustment to our plans.”

She saw him smile gently at her and shake his head slightly. Sighing heavily — a pretense, of course — she motioned for the others in the room to seat themselves around the table. Stroud remained where he was, one hand still resting on the back of Bethany’s chair, and Fenris walked over to lean against the wall near the door to the alley.

“I just wanted to review our plan,” Rhoane said steadily, “simply because it now appears that I cannot accompany you.”

Jaya growled at her. “Could you just stay here and take care of our family’s future? We will deal with the Black Divine.”

Rhoane shook her head. “I can’t do that. This has been my idea since the beginning.”

Anders said, “And we agreed to see it through with you, Commander. Whether it means success or failure, we will finish what we have started.”

“All right,” she continued. “Tomorrow, some of you will visit the Black Divine in the Minrathous Chantry. Clement, you will stay in the house with Abelas and me. If we need a message delivered to those who are in the Chantry, are you certain you can get there easily?”

Clement nodded, “Yes, Commander. I’ve been practicing the route.”

“Good. Anders, you will lead the party that travels to the Chantry. Are you prepared to face the Black Divine and state our demands?”

“I am, especially since they’re really my demands. This process is much too important to me not follow through.” He looked around the room, his gaze still haunted and guilty, tinged by his awareness of how much he personally was to benefit from their efforts. Rhoane smiled at him and reached out to pat his hand.

“And have to tried on the Tevinter magister dueling armor yet, Anders?” she asked quietly.

“Yes, I’ve given up arguing with you about that,” he said ruefully. “I’ll wear the armor.”

Fenris interjected from his place beside the door, “It’s an important part of the plan, Anders. We are trying to force the Divine’s hand by claiming the right to combat for access to his private documents.”

Anders looked over his shoulder at the lyrium-branded elf. “But doesn’t the armor make me a target for the duel?”

“If the Divine is a fool, then yes,” Fenris said coldly. “But let’s assume he isn’t. If he’s given the choice between a full-fledged mage in Tevinter battle armor and a newly released apprentice, I’m willing to believe he’ll choose the option that seems the least threatening.”

“I suppose that if I am chosen for the duel,” Anders added, “that I have … special skills … that they won’t have seen before.”

“Bethany,” Rhoane said softly, leaning forward so that she could look into her sister’s face, “are you prepared? We’re putting you in a very dangerous position. It’s very likely that the Black Divine will see you as the weaker mage and choose you for the duel.”

Bethany nodded, a small motion that Rhoane almost missed. “I know you probably don’t want to hear this, but I’ve been living with a sister who’s the Champion of Kirkwall and then I got another sister who is the Hero of Ferelden. I’ve been waiting for a long time to prove that I’m worthy of both of you, even though I’m not going to get a fancy title for it.”

“You’ll be a hero to mages everywhere if this information leads where we believe it will,” Anders said quietly. “And a much better standard-bearer for their cause than I am.”

The Commander of the Grey moaned softly and wrapped one arm around her abdomen. “Unfortunately,” she said looking around the room, “I think you’re all much more prepared for what you have to do than I am.”


	28. Part Three • Chapter Five • Jaya Hawke

Jaya stood at the back of their diminished party, her eyes darting around the small groups that were gathered in the main room of the Chantry. They had all agreed among them, in the days preceding this one, that the main room of this building reminded them eerily of the worship hall of the Red Thaig. They were all just happy to see that the focal point of this room wasn’t a giant cistern of flowing lava.

Unfortunately, many of them had as unpleasant memories of a remarkably similar Chantry — the one in Kirkwall — the building that Anders had blown up through some ancient magical alchemy. The explosion, which had resulted in the death of the Grand Cleric, had been the spark that had led to the mages’ rebellion. The thought of being in a Chantry again made Hawke clench her hands into tight fists as she studied the small knots of priests and priestesses ranged around the room, all seemingly caring for the supplicants to the Divine. Her faith rested in the things that she could accomplish with her blades and in the skill of those who fought along side her: there was very little that she believed an absentee Maker and his martyred girlfriend could do for her.

She was grateful, however that Anders wasn’t letting the guilt that she knew he felt interfere with his performance for the agents of the Black Divine. He stood at the front of their little group, dressed in the night-black battle armor of a Tevinter magister, waiting for their moment to place their demands before the head of the Chantry in Minrathous. He appeared more confident than she had seen him in months — even more confident than he had been in Kirkwall after he had determined that fiery destruction was the only way to free mages from the suspicion and bullying of the templars. It was as if he knew that their answer was here.

It was still amazing to her how the Commander of the Grey’s mind work — that she had been able to see potentials for Anders in a carving on the wall of the Red Thaig. To Jaya, actions always came first — and told a better story for those who needed to hear what she had to say. But Rhoane had been able to see possibilities in those simple lines — lines that had been left there ages before Hawke and her friends had ventured into the thaig. The fact that her sister could see links between the books that she had read, the art that she had seen — even the connections among the people around her — it made Jaya’s mind boggle.

But she had spent her life in service and action, not the relatively contemplative upbringing that a mage in a Circle Tower experienced. It only gave her sister skills that complemented her own, just as the education in magic that Bethany had gained from their father had been able to add to Rhoane’s list of spells and had saved Jaya’s own life more than once. The three of them together might just be unstoppable.

But right now, if their plans played out the way that they expected, everything would depend on Bethany. She looked over at her little sister and clenched her fists again. She would do anything that she could to protect her sister, to keep her from having to face the battle that they all knew was coming, and her very helplessness was making her overly sensitive paranoia alarms blare throughout her body. She looked quickly around the Chantry again, shifting from foot to foot.

“Hawke,” Fenris said in a soft undertone beside her, “if you don’t stop glowering like the Arishok, none of those nice, unassuming members of the priesthood is going to come over to help us.”

Jaya frowned at him. “I’m not glowering.”

“Stroud?” the elf questioned to draw the Warden-Lieutenant’s attention.

When he looked over at her, Stroud nodded, saying, “Glowering.”

“Oh, very well,” she said, turning away from the front of the Chantry so that any priests coming in their direction wouldn’t see her face. “I thought that all that bodyguards did was stand around and look unhappy.”

“Normally, yes” Fenris murmured to her. “But we’re in what’s supposed to be a sanctuary for all believers. Hordes of assassins aren’t supposed to spring from the shadows to strike you down here.”

“Well, we both know that’s not true,” she snapped back at him. “We’ve been attacked the Chantry just as much as anywhere else we’ve ever been.” She rubbed her hand across her forehead. “Except maybe the Hanged Man. We saw a lot of battles in that tavern.”

“Yes, but it was expected there,” the elf continued. “What you didn’t expect at the Hanged Man was a decent bowl of stew.”

Hawke smiled over at the lyrium-branded elf and noticed that Stroud had turned away from their conversation again. She saw that his eyes flickered again and again to Bethany’s face. Leaning more closely to Fenris, she whispered for his ears alone, “If she fails at this, do you think he’ll be all right?”

The elf shrugged slightly and replied, “She will not fail, Hawke. She cannot fail.”

She smiled softly at him and nodded. To hear her lover express confidence in one of her sisters was reassuring, but to hear him say that he believed that a mage would be able to triumph in spite of indeterminate odds, that was amazing to her. She knew that if the Fenris who had once battled beside her was here now, he would simply walk up to the Black Divine and threaten to remove his heart. But this Fenris was willing to place his faith in a mage — even if he only believed in her because she was her sister — and that was another amazing change that had come about through the interaction of their little group.

The sound of footsteps behind them drew her attention, and she turned in time to see a priestess of the Chantry address Anders. He nodded and motioned for them to follow him. Stroud and Bethany moved away directly behind Anders, and Hawke and Fenris trailed along at the end. As the five of them — and their guide — mounted the massive staircase that led to the Seat of the Divine, Hawke drew in a deep breath, trying to still the thunderclap beating of her heart. There was no failure in this moment: the only thing they could do was succeed.

As they mounted the dais, Hawke got her first chance to study the face of the supreme leader of the Chantry in Tevinter. The Divine was dressed in a luxurious set of black robes, embroidered on the chest with a brilliant argent sun. The sleeves were loosely flowing and draped well below his fingertips, which were encased in a pair of black silken gloves. On his head rested a worked filigree crown of silver metal with Andraste’s flaming sword centered in the front of the design and emblazoned with sparkling diamond, ruby, and topaz stones. The Divine’s face was long and narrow, his cheeks sucked in, his eyes sunken and shadowed. But a rich black fall of hair surrounded his head, and his eyes were curiously bright and attentive. Hawke’s paranoid instincts flamed alight again.

“The Maker’s blessing on all of you,” he said in a low-pitched, almost hypnotic voice. “And also, welcome to Minrathous. I understand that this is your first visit to our city.”

Anders bowed his head and replied, “Yes, thank you, your Grace. My partner and I had meant to make the journey — oh, many, many years before now. But it only became possible recently.”

The Black Divine looked around at their party. “It’s a pity that your partner couldn’t join us today, as it was her request for an audience that I was granting.”

The armor-clad mage bowed his head again. “We appreciate the flexibility of the Divine in this matter. My partner’s pregnancy has been more than a little bother during our journey, and she could not have picked a worse time to deliver her child.”

“Our children enter the world as the Maker wills,” the Divine said like a benediction. “I will pray for the safe delivery of this new life.”

Shrugging his shoulders, Anders said, “As you will. It’s not my child, so I have little stake in the entire matter.”

Hawke saw the Black Divine look questioningly at the mage and then down at his gloved hands, a little smile quirking at his lips. The cleric thought that he had gained valuable information from Anders, but Hawke knew that he was wrong. While they wanted the Divine to believe that Anders and Rhoane were some kind of couple — two very powerful mages who worked and lived together — they also wanted him to believe that there might be some kind of rift between them. That Rhoane had cuckholded him and the child that she was carrying was the result. Fenris and Abelas both believed that the betrayal would position Rhoane as the more powerful of the two mages, that it would demonstrate a weakness in Anders assumed character. The Divine’s little smile seemed to indicate that it had worked.

“Am I to assume,” the Divine said after a long pause, “that her and your interests still travel in the same direction? Is the request she would have made of me the same one that you will make?”

Anders nodded, “Yes, your Grace. Our research is on the same subject.”

“Then, my son,” the Divine asked, “what can I do for you?”

“Your Grace,” the mage said, “we request access to your personal libraries.”

The cleric turned to look out over the floor of the Chantry, as if searching for his response among the eager faces that glanced up as he studied the room. Reaching out one hand, he rested it on the lectern at the front of the raised platform, the dais where the Divine delivered the word of the Maker to the faithful. Hawke saw his hand close into a fist and prepared herself.

Turning back to Anders, the Divine said, “My child, my private libraries — the libraries that have been passed from one head of the Tevinter Chantry to the next — are restricted. Even so kindly expressed a request must be rejected, I’m afraid.”

“Then,” Anders started, and then looked over his shoulder at Fenris. When the elf nodded, he continued, “then I demand the Right of Boon by Combat.”

“For someone who has never been to the capital,” the Divine said, studying the mage from head to toe, “you are uniquely informed on our traditions.”

“And some people question why we bothered to acquire this elf from Danarius,” Anders said coldly. “Preparation is the heart of success, your Grace.”

“Perhaps,” the cleric replied. “But asking for the Right of Boon of Combat does not guarantee your success.”

Anders shrugged. “I either ask for the Boon or return to face an irate woman who has just delivered her first child. There’s wisdom in my asking.”

“Very well,” the Divine said, turning to a priestess who waited nearby to serve him. “Fetch my champion, and have the floor of the Chantry cleared. This mage has requested the Right of Boon of Combat.”

The priestess nodded and left the platform. When the Black Divine turned to face them again, he pointed toward Bethany. “I feel certain that the only way you will merit the unparalleled knowledge held within my private collection is if the least among you can defeat my champion. Let the apprentice do it.”

Anders looked over his shoulder at Hawke’s sister, who nodded back at him. “I should tell you that my master released my from my apprenticeship yesterday morning,” she said to the Divine.

“Why does that matter?” the cleric asked. “You‘ve challenged a champion of the Tevinter Imperium and the Chantry. The Maker’s will be done.”

Bethany bowed her head and turned to walk down the stairs to the main floor of the building. Hawke caught her eye as she passed and clenched her fist in front of her chest. It was the most that she could do to encourage her sister in that moment, and it felt desperately inadequate.

As Bethany passed, Stroud fell in step behind her, and Hawke and Fenris joined him as he moved to the floor of the Chantry. At the bottom of the steps, the three of them stopped, allowing Bethany to move into the center of the room alone. Jaya saw her sister slide her staff from the brace on her back and bow to the Black Divine on his dais. Then she turned to face the large main doors that led out into the city of Minrathous.

After a few long moments, the huge doors of the Chantry opened, and a mage clad in night-black armor strode down the aisle to the main room. Not an inch of his skin showed, and his eyes were shielded by the visor of his helmet. He bore a staff with a blood-red gem at the crown, and Hawke could already feel the pull of his blood calling to hers. A blood mage, as they all had expected. She prayed to the Maker that Bethany’s training with Rhoane would be enough.

“The supplicant,” the Divine said in a clear, strong voice, “has asked for the Right of Boon of Combat. If his challenger can defeat my champion, I will grant the request that he has already voiced to me. If not, his challenger will die. Are the combatants ready?”

The black-clad mage nodded as Bethany called out in a clear voice, “Yes, your Grace.”

“May the Maker bring the righteous victory,” he said, and Hawke saw him move to the forward edge of the raised platform. He may have been confident in his champion’s ability to defeat the younger mage, but he wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to see her blood spilled either. She frowned and looked back at her sister.

Everyone in the room could feel the force of the Tevinter champion’s first spell: it attempted to convince everyone in the room that he was their friend, that he fought for their cause and would be victorious if they would only support him. Hawke saw Bethany begin to take one stuttering step forward, as if the call of blood to blood was too strong for her to resist.

Then she slammed the butt of her staff into the ground, and the earth heaved.

While most of the people in the room struggled to maintain their footing, Bethany leaped to one side, swinging her staff in a vicious arc and sending a brilliant ball of flame toward the armored mage’s head. He answered with his staff — swatting the fire away and letting it fly up into the rafters of the Chantry, where it set a drooping banner depicting Andraste’s flaming sword alight. As ashen streamers descended toward the floor, the mage caused the rock that made it to shift, sending a spear of stone up toward Bethany’s midsection. She twirled and avoided the projectile, sending another ball of fire toward her armored opponent.

For long moments, Hawke believed that the battle between the two mages would be fought only on the basis of their skill with the elements, and it gave her some measure of hope. Bethany was at least as skilled as the champion when it came to the use of fire and earth, and their spell almost seemed to counteract each other as soon as they were cast. In addition, the extra time that her sisters had spent training together had given the youngest an even more powerful ability to shake off the allure that was the basis for most of the spells that spoke directly to her blood. Bethany danced around the perimeter of the room, constantly on the move, forcing the mage to track her with his eyes and adjustments of his body. Hawke noticed, however, that he had barely left the point at which they had begun their battle, choosing instead to pivot toward her sister in order to answer her attacks. She hoped that Bethany had noticed, too.

The mage tried to send another spear of stone through her opponent’s body, but Bethany was moving too quickly: the rock couldn’t form into a weapon fast enough to pierce her flesh, and the stone was canting crazily in its attempts to stab and strike at her. Bethany turned the oddly angled stone to her advantage, rushing up one slant and leaping toward the mage in the center of the room, casting a spell as she flew.

It was a good strategy, but Hawke felt the impact of the mage’s concussion response at the moment he released it. Bethany went sailing away from her opponent and landed heavily on the ground. She was on her feet again in an instant, but Hawke saw her clasping one arm against her body. She had been injured, Jaya was certain of it.

The more remarkable thing was that armored mage had not responded immediately, and she looked over to see him encased in a block of glittering ice. But even as Bethany stepped toward him to cast another spell, the ice slithered away, forming a wet puddle at the mage’s feet. Her sister started running again, narrowly avoiding the trailing end of the fire spell that had melted the mage’s icy prison.

It was in that moment, just after the mage had escaped from Bethany’s block of ice, that the battle changed. Hawke watched in horror as the mage slashed the edge of his staff across the palm of his hand, using his own blood to create a tear in the Veil between their world and the Fade. Bethany still raced around the room, and for a brief, heart stopping moment, Jaya lost sight of her as a demon answered the mage’s summons and stepped into the room.

She felt rather than saw Stroud move forward, and she reached out her hand to tightly clasp his arm. With one rapid glance, she saw that Fenris had done precisely the same thing, and she heard him mutter to the Warden-Lieutenant, “Don’t. If you interfere, you doom us all.”

A blast of freezing air landed at the mage’s feet just as the demon formed fully on this side of the tear in the Veil, and Hawke feared that Bethany had missed her mark. In the next moment, a brilliant glyph of light rose up from the floor, stilling all of the demon’s movement, trapping him in place. The snare was quickly followed by another blast of frost that seemed to fall short, and Jaya looked over at her sister, fearing the worst.

But her sister was not where she expected her to be. Instead, Bethany was sliding on one hip across the floor of the Chantry — a floor that had been turned into the slick surface like a frozen pond. As she started to pass the armored mage, she thrust her staff between his legs, using her momentum and a quick snap of her weapon bring him to his knees. But there was more: Hawke heard the unmistakable sound of breaking bone, and the mage fell to the floor. Bethany redirected her slide by rebounding off one of the shards of rock that rose up from the floor, skidding to a halt beside the mage and rising to place her foot on his throat, her staff pressed against his helmet. Almost as an afterthought, she release the spell that bound the demon and crushed it into dust with another spell of imprisonment.

Hawke looked up at the Black Divine, who was leaning forward against the railing that surrounded the platform. “Finish it,” he called out to Bethany, his eyes eagerly studying the girl and the rubble that filled the floor of the Chantry. “End this duel and claim your reward.”

Bethany raised her staff, but instead of using it to pierce or bludgeon, she swung it against the champion’s helmet, knocking him unconscious. “I have defeated your champion,” she called to the Divine. “He will not rise to face me further. I claim the boon that was requested.”

Hawke could see the fury that filled the Divine’s face and felt her muscles tense in response. From the corner of her eye, she saw Bethany step away from the defeated mage, stumbling slightly as her exhaustion overwhelmed her.

But her eyes were only on the Divine, who had crooked one hand, his lips moving silently. A cloud of misty blood seeped up from between the seams of his defeated champion’s armor and then fell like a red drift of dew to coat the night-black material. Hawke could see his eyes travel to Bethany, his lips still moving, and she leaped.

In an instant, she was behind the Black Divine, one of her axes pressing into the side of his throat. Fenris, too, had flown up and over the railing, his halberd gripped tightly in his hands. She looked back down at the floor of the Chantry and saw Stroud pick Bethany up in his arms and carry her toward the open front doors.

Anders stepped over to the Divine and looked into his eyes. “I see that only the Maker is capable of true mercy to the faithful,” he said, glancing at the weapons that both Hawke and Fenris held ready to strike. “We’ll be back tomorrow morning, and then every morning after that until we’re satisfied that we’ve exhausted the resources of your private library.” He started down the steps and then stopped to look back at the Divine. “And I would encourage you to abandon any thoughts of revenge. It would be a shocking waste of resources.”


	29. Part Three • Chapter Six • Bethany Hawke

It was beyond her capabilities even to think. All she knew was that she had defeated the Divine’s champion and won the right for anyone in their party to continue their research in the restricted Chantry libraries. She took one staggering step, and then another, and felt her body begin to sag toward the floor.

Her movement was stopped when two arms reached out to catch her and lift her from the floor. She tried to pry her eyes open, but they stayed stubbornly shut, exhausted by the drain of magic through her body. One strong arm scooped up her legs behind her knees and the other wrapped around her shoulders, so that she was cradled against a broad chest and carried from the Chantry.

“Who …?” she asked uncertainly.

The Warden-Lieutenant’s voice answered her, “It is I, Bethany. Be still.”

She lifted her head and managed to open her eyes finally. “I can walk you know,” she said, trying to lever her body away from Stroud’s own.

“I said ‘be still,’” he growled at her, his arm tightening painfully around her. “You don’t even have the strength to knock over a kitten, ma moitié. Just rest, and I will take you home.”

Sighing, she reached up to wrap her arms around Stroud’s neck and gave up her struggle. It would be better, she told herself, simply to follow his orders. He would protect her, she thought as she let her head fall against his shoulder. He would see her safely home.

The next thing that she was aware of was the sound of banging and the feeling of Stroud’s leg moving as if he were kicking something. Opening her eyes, she saw that they were standing in front of the scholar’s house, and she surmised that the Warden-Lieutenant had pounded on the door with his booted foot in order to get someone’s attention. Tightening her grip around his neck, she closed her eyes again and waited for the sound of the latch lifting.

“Here, bring her in,” she heard Abelas’s voice saying, and again she was moving forward in the security of Stroud’s arms. “I assume our plan went as we had hoped.”

Stroud’s voice was a comforting rumble under her cheek, but she was too tired to listen very closely to it. “Precisely as we hoped, until the Black Divine intervened. Bethany knocked the champion unconscious, but the cleric didn’t want it to stop at that. He drew the blood from the man’s body where he lay on the Chantry floor.”

“So it is as we suspected,” the elf said. “The Black Divine is also a mage.”

“Yes,” the Warden-Lieutenant answered. “And I’m afraid that I left him being threatened by both Hawke and Fenris.”

Bethany heard her sister’s husband say something in response, but her tired brain refused to process it. She yawned and felt Stroud moved on into the house.

“Your wife?” Stroud asked.

“Still laboring,” Abelas answered.

Stroud sighed and said, “In the Maker’s own time, then.”

“Please, take Bethany to her room. I will be sure you know when our new life is safely delivered.”

She heard the Warden-Lieutenant thank Abelas as a door creaked open nearby and in moments she was being lowered into the cushioned softness of her bed. Without thinking, she tightened her grip on Stroud’s neck, unwilling to leave the comfort and safety of his arms.

“Bethany,” he said softly, “please. I must leave you …”

“No,” she said angrily. “Don’t leave me.”

“Ma moitié, please,” he said again.

She opened her eyes and looked directly into his own. “No, Stroud, you don’t understand,” she said in a small voice. “Please, don’t leave me. Don’t leave me ever.”

His breath gasped in quickly, and he let her legs fall down onto the bed so that he could bring that hand up to cup her cheek and sit beside her. “You can’t mean that, Bethany. The difference in our ages … you could have a young man, so much better suited to you.”

“How?” she asked, her voice breaking on a barely suppressed sob. “How could I possibly find a young man when I’m already in love with you?”

She stared up at him, unwilling to break eye contact, hoping against hope that she hadn’t ruined everything when she had slapped him in the Deep Roads. His face moved closer to hers, and she closed her eyes, feeling the gentle rush of his breath against her mouth. When his lips met hers, she sighed, tightening her arms around his neck and straining closer to him. He kissed her gently, his lips seeming to barely graze her mouth, his hand still cupping her cheek gently. But it wasn’t enough for her. She pulled herself closer to him, letting her lips part and teasing his mouth with lightning-fast touches of her tongue. As his hand slid around to the back of her neck, he let his lips slip open, tightening the hold of his other arm around her and crushing her breasts against the hard chain of his chest armor. Their kiss deepened, and she thrilled at the tingling fire that raced throughout her body.

At last he lifted his lips from hers, and she opened her eyes so that she could look up at him again. “Bethany,” he whispered to her, “you have to tell me to leave. If you don’t send me away, I can’t be responsible for what will happen. I’ve spent so many nights imagining all the ways that I would show you how much I love you. I … I won’t be able to control myself if you let me stay.”

She looked away from him for just a moment, knowing that he would leave her if she could only say the words. But she couldn’t. He had her heart as surely as she had his. And she was tired of being afraid of what his love might mean to her.

“Stay then,” she murmured, looking up at him and bringing one hand from behind his neck to stroke the familiarly beloved lines of his face. “Teach me what it means to be loved by you.”

He tightened his arms and brought their lips together again, pressing toward her so that her head rested against the pillow. When his mouth finally lifted from hers, it was only so that he could press his lips against the smooth contours of her face, lingering gently on her eyelids and the tender spot just in front of her ear. “My beautiful,” he whispered, his voice hoarse with his longing, “my Bethany. How have I lived all these years without you?”

“You’d better stop telling me that the man I love is too old,” she warned him, running her fingers up through his dark hair. “After all, he just carried me all the way through Minrathous. And I’m hoping that he still has the strength to … express … this love he’s only told me about.”

He smiled at her and used his grip on her head to hold her close. She missed the touch of his other hand, but understood why he wasn’t holding her with it when she felt the chain of his breastplate sag against her chest. Pulling away from him, Bethany asked, “Would it be easier if I help you with your armor?”

Shaking his head, he answered, “Not easier, no, ma moitié. Because, now that I have you, I am not sure that I’ll ever be able to let you go.”

“But we can be so much closer,” she whispered to him, “if only you get rid of your armor.”

He nodded and said, “I’ll return quickly, after I’ve deposited everything in my room …”

“Why?” she asked. “Aren’t you going to stay here with me? From now on?”

“I … what will your sisters have to say about that?”

“My sisters will say that it’s about time,” she returned. “I think they’re a little tired of my whining about how I ruined our relationship when I slapped you.”

He took her face in both of his hands and looked deeply into her eyes. “Are you certain, my Bethany? You must be certain … or I cannot …”

Laying her hands over his own, she answered him. “Yes, I am certain. My room is your room. My home is your home. My heart is your heart.”

Sighing, he pressed his lips to her forehead and rose from his seat on the bed. He crossed the room to a chair that sat just inside the door and began to work the fastenings that held his armor in place. Bethany watched impatiently, uncertain what to do to ease the burning hunger that roiled inside her. At last, she could stand the waiting no longer, and she rose from the bed to go to his side. His chest was already bare, and she traced her fingers across the hardened skin of the scars that he had earned in battle. She could feel him jump at her touch, but he never drew away, and she let her fingertips stroke and tease the hardened flesh in front of her. When she at last looked away from the marred skin, she saw that he was dressed only in his drawers, and a sudden flurry of shyness swelled inside of her. She took a step away from him, but he followed her, reaching out to fumble with the ties of her mage’s robes.

“Ma moitié,” he said softly, “it’s been years since I helped a woman out of her clothing, and I’m afraid that I’ve never before undressed a mage. Could you show me how it’s done?”

“You’re lucky,” she said jokingly, “because mage robes are the easiest things in the world. You untie here … and here … and they just fall off.”

Which they did. Her robes slipped straight down to the floor, leaving her standing before him in her breast binding and her knickers. She saw him smile wickedly at her and then he had scooped her up again and carried her back to the bed. Reaching out with one hand, he pulled the sheets back and lowered her so that she was resting on the pillows. After he had climbed into the bed beside her, he pulled the covers up to enclose them in a cocoon of warmth. With one hand wrapped around her hip, he dragged her against him, and she felt the urgent need of his body against hers. He buried his face in her black hair, pressing frenzied kisses against her throat and shoulders while she sighed her pleasure into the shadowy room.

“Bethany,” he whispered into her hair. “You must tell me if I frighten you.”

“I will,” she murmured. “And you must tell me how to please you.”

“Ma moitié, you bring me pleasure just by allowing me in your bed,” he moaned against her mouth, pressing her onto her back and letting his lips trail down the curve of her neck to rain kisses across her chest. At first, she giggled at the tickle of his long mustache as it grazed across her skin, but then he untied her breast binding and gently touched the soft curve of her for the first time. She gasped in surprised pleasure, and his fingers and then his lips tenderly stroked across the crest of her breast, tightening the skin. But when his lips closed around the taut nipple and he drew it into his mouth to suckle at it, she nearly screamed in pleasure. Her hands flew up to his head, and she threaded her fingers into his hair to hold him closer. She nearly cried out in loss when he lifted his head again.

“Bethany?” he questioned softly.

“More. Oh, Maker, please give me more,” she cried, lifting her lips to his and winding her arms tightly around his shoulders.

It might have been what she said, or the way that she said it, but Stroud did give her more until she was overflowing with his love for her. His hands and lips were everywhere, touching and kneading, kissing and suckling, until she felt as if her entire body was one burning flame that would never be extinguished. Even that moment of pain when he entered her could not compare to the cresting waves of pleasure that overtook her as he moved her to her fulfillment. And her pleasure redoubled when she heard him groan against her ear, reaching his own pinnacle just moments after she did.

Collapsing beside her, Stroud reached out to pull her against him and let her head rest on his shoulder. His fingers trailed through her hair, and she slipped one long leg between his own, shifting to be as tightly melded to him as she could be. She sighed and let her eyes drift closed, contented and fulfilled.

“Bethany?” Stroud said gently. “I didn’t hurt you very much, did I?”

She shook her head and reached up one hand to twine it around his neck. “Is it always like this?” she asked innocently.

“I can try to make it so,” he replied, his arm tightening around her. “But you are so damnably beautiful. I may lose my patience more than once when I’m loving you.” She yawned against his chest, and Bethany felt Stroud’s hand close around the back of her head. “But that’s a question for all the days of our future, ma moitié. Sleep now. I will guard your slumber.”


	30. Part Three • Chapter Seven • Anders

He sat with his back to the crackling fire in the kitchen, cradling the newest member of their little party — their family of misfits and heroes. The infant Leandra was sleeping soundly, her tiny mouth moving in a gentle sucking motion as she dreamed of the great experiences in her week-long life. In the past, Anders had delivered babies — this time the midwife had ordered him from the room — and he had been just as happy to be able to walk away from those new mothers and their squalling infants the moment he was no longer needed.

He wasn’t sure that he would be able to walk away from her so easily.

When he, Fenris, and Hawke had returned from their confrontation with the Black Divine, Bethany and Stroud had disappeared, and the Commander had still been in labor. All he and the others could do was wait, and their pretense had left him alone for most of the day with the young Grey Warden mage, Clement. For the sake of the very nosey midwife, he had tried to teach the boy how to apply some of the healing magic that he had learned and adapted while he had his clinic in Kirkwall. Clement was a quick study, able to repeat the instructions that he was given easily and with little repetition. It would be a pleasure to teach the boy what he knew — if it were possible.

Which it wasn’t. He was grasping at this last straw, this slim hope that the Commander of the Grey actually would be able to find a way to separate him and Justice, but he had become a creature of despair. Time and again he told himself that it would have been better if he had stayed in the Deep Roads, if he had simply been willing to give in to the darkspawn. But something had kept him fighting against the creatures, even as the blackness in his soul told him lay down his staff and be consumed. Something had kept that glimmer of hope alight for him.

He looked up as the servants’ door opened, and Fenris stepped into the room from the narrow alleyway.

“Anders,” the elf said in way of greeting. “You’re not supposed to be in here.”

The mage shrugged. “The Commander asked me to care for her. And I can’t stand that gloomy parlor.”

“Still, if it had been anyone else,” Fenris argued, “or if I hadn’t been alone …”

“I’m a very good liar, you know,” Anders responded, looking back down into the baby’s sleeping face. “I swear I won’t endanger us now. Not if I can help myself.”

He heard the elf sigh and looked back over at him. “What is it?”

Fenris crossed to the fireplace and leaned one arm on the mantle, staring down into the glowing coals in front of him. The mage watched in an amused fascination, shifting on his chair so that he could still see his compatriot. After a long moment of silence, the elf began to speak.

“Together, we’ve agreed that the scholar’s collection shouldn’t remain in Minrathous, correct?” Anders grunted and the elf continued, “But I hadn’t realized that it would be so difficult — so personally wearing on me — to make the arrangements.”

“I thought you already had the wagon and were just waiting until we are leaving to pack it,” the mage said curiously.

“Yes, but we still need guards to take it safely to the Circle Tower in Ferelden.” Fenris lifted one hand and rubbed it across his forehead. “Abelas and I thought it would be best to … purchase … some slaves to send along with the wagon.”

“You’re buying slaves?” Anders asked, his voice rising in volume and causing the baby in his arms to shift and stretch. He moved her up onto his shoulder and started patting her gently on her back, trying to soothe her back to sleep. But his own struggle to calm himself was harder. When Fenris had mentioned the slaves, Justice had sent an alarming buzz of energy through him — an energy that Anders hadn’t felt for weeks. The mage tried to breathe evenly and relax, hoping that the spirit would simply retire to whatever corner of their shared being he had been hiding in.

“Yes, we’re purchasing slaves,” the elf spat out into the fireplace. “At least, we’re planning to purchase some. We’re actually going to need your help for that.”

Anders was about to protest when the elf continued. “We need a mage to make the purchases we have in mind, someone with a certain reputation. It’s helped us so far in finding the right people, but you’re going to have to do the negotiation.”

“I don’t buy people!” Anders exclaimed, rising to his feet and shouting at the elf. The flicker of Justice’s power spread across his skin, and he worried for a moment about its affect on the infant. Luckily for all of them, her father stepped through the door to the alley at that moment and crossed to the mage, taking his daughter in his arms and soothing her while Anders battled with the power of the spirit inside of him.

“I feel that you are not explaining our plan as clearly as you could,” Abelas said gently, rocking his child in his arms. “We are not buying the slaves to keep them. We are sending them to Ferelden with the artifacts as free men and women.”

Those words stilled the cries for justice that were raging through him, and Anders was able to resume his seat, bracing his elbows on his knees and dropping his head into his hands. “I’m sorry,” he apologized meekly. “I should have known that neither of you would actively support slavery.”

Fenris added, “I apologize, too. It’s just that my mind has been such a jumble since Rhoane suggested this idea that I’m not sure I’ve thought through how to explain it to anyone. Besides Abelas, who already knows what we’re doing.”

“Anyone else planning to do any shouting about buying people?” Hawke said, stepping into the kitchen. “Because I’m not sure they heard you in the marketplace.”

“I’m sorry, Hawke,” Fenris and Anders said at the same moment. She looked between the two men and started laughing. The mage looked over at the elf and chuckled a bit himself, feeling the sense of panic that Justice might take over at any minute drain away from him. He leaned back in his chair and let the warmth from the fire seep into his back.

“So what’s all this about?” Hawke asked, walking up to Abelas so that she could touch the tiny hand of her niece with one gentle finger.

“We haven’t discussed it with anyone yet,” Fenris said, “because we needed to be sure that it would work. But Abelas and I have been quietly trying to find some slaves who are in danger from their masters and send them to Ferelden with the wagon.”

“And once they’re at the Circle,” a new voice added from the doorway, “I hope that the First Enchanter can help them start new lives.”

“Good morning, ma vhenan,” Abelas said in a soft voice to his wife. Anders watched as she crossed to him, leaning forward to buss him gently on the lips and her daughter on the forehead. “Are you prepared?”

She nodded and stretched, saying, “A little sleepy, but I spent too many late hours in the Tower library to let that stop me.”

“As soon as Bethany and Stroud have returned,” Abelas said, “we can make our way to the Chantry.”

“Good,” she replied. “What’s for breakfast?”

They were just finishing their meal and cleaning up when Anders heard the front door open and close. Bethany tripped into the kitchen, her hand tightly gripping Stroud’s. The Warden-Lieutenant was smiling at some little remark that she had made on their way in, and the mage thought that he hadn’t seen the older man as happy in all the time that he had known him. There was something special — some magic — that being loved had created in the Grey Warden, and Anders gazed wistfully at the couple. Maybe, if everything that the Commander believed would happen came true, he would be able to love and be loved with a whole heart.

Clement stumbled into the kitchen at that moment, tugging his arms into his jacket as he came. He never quite had his footing, with the result that, after he had passed the doorway, he tripped, falling against Anders. The older mage started at the brush of the boy’s skin against his, simply nodding when Clement breathed an anxious apology. Slipping down into a chair at the other end of the table, the young Grey Warden mage gathered a few bits of food to break his fast. But Anders saw the quick glances that the boy sent back at him, each one regretful in some strange way.

They walked together to the Chantry, and Rhoane graciously greeted the Black Divine, thanking him for his hospitality and generosity in allowing them access to his private library. The Divine, in contrast, dismissed them with a wave of his hand and sent an acolyte — not even a fully vested priest of the Chantry — to escort them to the cleric’s personal sanctuary. Abelas and Fenris were stationed at the door as guards, mostly because neither of them had ever been taught to read — even though both Hawke and Rhoane had been working with them to help them learn their letters. The four mages, Rhoane, and Hawke sectioned off the great rows of books and began their very methodical search.

It was late in the afternoon when Anders came across the reference to “spirit walking” and called Rhoane to his side. She read the passage quickly, then again, trying — just as Anders was — to understand the meaning behind the carefully chosen words.

“Could this ‘spirit walking’ be what the ancient mages used for dreaming?” he asked quietly. “In our dreams, we walk the Fade in spirit, correct?”

“Yes,” she said softly. “It’s only when we’re sent into the Fade with magic and lyrium that we are physically there. Or when we walk through an eluvian.”

Anders continued his thought. “So the Tevinter mages are saying that there’s a separate component to our … our being … that is the part of us that journeys the Fade.”

“And that must be the part of humankind that they severed from the dwarves when they made them sleep like the stone.” Rhoane placed her hand on Anders’s shoulder and squeezed. “That’s half of the puzzle. If we can find the spell or mechanism that allowed the mages to focus on the part of us that does the spirit walking, then we should be able to sever it, too.”

The sun was beginning to slip behind the tall spires of the city when Anders heard Hawke exclaim, “Maker’s breath!”

“What is it, sister?” Bethany called from the row next to where Hawke had been looking at ancient collections of scrolls. When Anders rounded the corner, he saw that she had a wide piece of hide spread held before her, its long end trailing on the floor. When Hawke saw him, she motioned for his help, handing him the edges that she had in her hands and gathering up the trailing end as he moved toward the center of the room with the decorated leather. They spread the image across the table, letting its edges dangle toward the floor, and waited for the other mages to gather.

“By the Maker!” Bethany exclaimed as she approached. “Is that a map of Fenris’s tattoos?”

Anders saw Hawke nod, her fingers trailing across the inked lines that were traced inside the outline of a humanoid figure. He stared at the lines and whorls, fascinated by the intricacy and grace of the work that he knew was replicated all across the warrior elf’s body. “Where did you find this?” he asked quietly.

Hawke walked with him back to the shelves, and she indicated a weathered wooden box that was hidden behind a larger metal-bound chest. Picking it up, he carried it back to the table, and the Commander of the Grey came up to his side and began removing other scrolls and papers, her baby balanced in one arm. Methodically, they opened the delicate papers and spread them on the table, examining the contents and then just as carefully rolling them back up and returning them to the box.

There were only a few pieces remaining on the table when an image on the scroll that Anders had just unrolled made him drop the paper to the floor. Everyone in the room looked over at him, and Clement quickly bent to pick up the scroll, unrolling it on top of the hide that was painted with the pattern of Fenris’s tattoos. The picture was of a mage, glowing brightly from the lines of lyrium that were branded into his body, stepping into an eluvian. A dwarf was leaning with the back of his skull pressed against the glassy surface of the mirror portal, and the mage’s shimmering hand had passed through his skull.

“By the Maker,” Hawke gasped. “They used the tattoos for this magic.”

“Or,” Rhoane suggested, “the tattoos were originally designed to work this magic — to save future generations of dwarves from the nightmares that the earth spirit sent into their dreams. Maybe it’s the mages of today who have perverted the meaning of the tattoos, limiting them to being used for killing instead.”

Anders swallowed hard as he stared at the image. He and Fenris had lived most recently in a kind of uneasy truce, avoiding each other whenever possible. The pictures spread out on the table — if he was reading them correctly — meant that he would have to place his life in the elf’s hands in order to be free of Justice. He shivered at the thought, and Clement placed a hand on his arm, asking in a soft voice, “What is it?”

Shaking his head, the elder mage looked up at Hawke, who was still gazing down at the patterns on the soft hide, seemingly lost in memories of tracing those very lines across her lover’s skin. Anders glanced away and caught the gaze of the Commander of the Grey. She smiled gently at him and nodded.

“Jaya,” she said. “We need Fenris.”

“Oh, of course,” Hawke said coming out of her trance. “I’ll get him.”

When the Champion returned with the elf, Anders remained perfectly still, listening as the Commander of the Grey explained their theory. He worked very hard not to meet the elf’s green-gold eyes, staring instead at the pictures that seemed to hold the promise of his future.

“It appears that this is the process,” Rhoane was saying, looking over at the lyrium-branded elf, and Anders could see how hard she struggled against her own enthusiasm, trying to leave the decision to the elf. “We’ll translate this script to make sure, of course, but you will have a vital role to play, Fenris. We just need to know whether you are willing to help.”

At last, Anders looked up and met the eyes of the elf who had been his antagonist — almost his rival — for all the years that he had known Hawke. He held his breath for a long moment studying Fenris’s face for any sign of animosity, but all he could see was a mirror of his own hope.

“It would be my pleasure,” the elf answered.


	31. Part Three • Chapter Eight • Rhoane Amell

Rhoane crested the rocky outcropping and took a moment to enjoy the view — that sweeping vista of tree and grassland that was hidden behind this far-reaching arm of the Hunterhorn Mountains. She watched as Noble and Brute gamboled across the hillsides, snuffling in the likely hiding places for reptiles and rodents. Leandra, snugly against her chest, stirred and made a cooing sound, and she reached to gently stroke her daughter’s back through the fabric sling that held her in place. Her husband came up behind her and slipped his arm around her waist, pulling her gently against him.

“It’s beautiful here,” she said, leaning her head against his.

“A good place to build a home,” he said quietly. “Perhaps create a safe haven for mages where they could be taught away from the strictures of the Chantry. And safeguard the eluvian.”

“I …” she started, pulling away from him in surprise. “I think that’s a great idea.”

He smiled at her and pressed his lips to hers for a long moment. Sighing, she stepped more deeply into his embrace, angling to be close to him and protect the baby at the same time.

“Don’t you two ever stop?” Hawke asked, coming up behind them. “At this rate, you’re going to have an entire herd of little mages trailing along after you.”

Rhoane smiled wickedly at her. “Not if you beat us to it,” she teased, laughing mightily when a flush of red stained her sister’s cheeks. Noticing her other sister coming up the side of the mountain, she continued a little more loudly, “Or Bethany. I’m willing to spread the responsibility for creating future generations around.”

“Don’t spread any of that my way!” she called. “I’m perfectly happy enjoying my blossoming romance without all the distractions of living. Give me at least a little bit of time to get used to being in love, would you?”

The sisters laughed together, and then looked out over the valley.

“It’s nice here,” Bethany said. “Quiet, remote.”

Rhoane nodded. “Abelas was just saying that it would be a good place to create a sanctuary for mages.”

Bethany sighed beside her. “That sounds like a grand idea.”

“We’ll camp as close to the eluvian as we can,” Rhoane said, moving down the slope, “and then we’ll activate it in the morning.”

They set up their tents in a clearing in the little woods that surrounded the eluvian. As the twilight darkened around them, they gathered close together, sending the Mabari to patrol so that they could spend a few moments together before they faced what would come tomorrow. Rhoane and Anders told stories of their time together as Grey Wardens in Amaranthine, and Hawke shared some of their adventures around Kirkwall. The fire had burned low when Abelas left her side to find the hounds and take his turn on watch. The Commander of the Grey crawled into her tent and lay down with her daughter on her chest and drifted to sleep.

She woke with Leandra’s need, finding Abelas at her side, and let him help her with their baby. When their child’s needs had been met, she snuggled close to her husband and let her eyes slide shut.

“Ma vhenan,” her husband whispered to her in the darkness, “are you ready for tomorrow?”

“Yes, as ready as I can be, doing something that hasn’t been done for ages.”

He kissed the top of her head and pulled her tightly against him. “I fear for you.”

“I know,” she responded, pressing against him. “I swear that I will be careful. For your sake and for hers.”

“See that you do,” he said, raising himself on one elbow so that he could kiss her deeply. “I cannot live without you.”

She smiled into the darkness and whispered that she loved him, letting herself drift to sleep in the safety of his arms. When Leandra woke her again, the dim light of the rising sun was creeping through the flap in their tent, and Abelas was not beside her. She tended to her child and crawled out into the early morning light, watching the sky turn from gray to pink to bright with the rays of a brilliant sun. Stroking her baby’s head, she went to look for her husband.

As the sky lightened other members of their party emerged from the spaces where they had been sleeping, Fenris and Hawke smiling gently at each other; Bethany rushing from her tent to find Stroud and drag him back to their circle; Clement dragging his jacket onto his arms as he rose in the dawning light; and finally Anders, who seemed to creep reluctantly out to face the morning. Rhoane could understand why: either today was a failure, and the mage was cursed to live as he had been for years, or this morning was the first one in a new life. She hoped with all her being that the perfect dawn was a sign of that new life for Anders — and all mages everywhere.

When they had all broken their fast, the Commander of the Grey handed Leandra to her father and found her pack. Withdrawing the vials of lyrium-laced potion that she kept there, she looked around the circle of expectant faces, she said, “If you’re ready, we can start.”

They all nodded and walked to the collapsed circle of stones that guarded the ancient magical pattern that was carved into the stone of the valley floor. She positioned Anders with the back of his head resting against the inactive eluvian, Fenris standing beside him. Handing potion vials to Clement and Bethany, she instructed them to place a few drops in the hollows at the top of the small, upright stones — just as she had those many months ago to activate the power of the mirror portal. When the lyrium-laced liquid had wetted the top of each of the eight stones, the magical pattern came alight, glowing blue-white. The glassy surface of the eluvian shimmered, and she fixed her attention on it, quickly choosing the place where they would travel when they entered the portal.

She stepped up to Fenris and looked steadily into his eyes. “Your focus is the most important thing,” she said solemnly. “I will take us through the mirror to a place that I know of. You have to maintain your attention continually on that part of Anders’s spirit that walks the Fade. Anything that feels like part of the Fade, so that we remove Justice from his being. Are you ready?”

The elf looked over at Hawke, and Rhoane saw her nod at him. Without breaking their eye contact, Fenris stepped up to her sister and dragged her into his arms. Their kiss was passionate and lingering, and it made Rhoane smile. Looking over at her own husband, she raised her hand and placed it over her heart and watched him smile back at her.

She turned to look at Anders, who was staring at her with such a mixture of fear and hope that it almost made her cry.

“Commander, I …” he started and then stopped.

She knew there were no words — for either of them. So she stepped up to his side and kissed him on the forehead. “A new day,” was all she said as she looked back at Fenris again.

“Are you ready?” she asked.

In response, the lyrium-branded elf brought his tattoos alight and stepped up between her and Anders, positioning his sparkling hand across the mage’s eyes. Rhoane reached out and took his other hand in hers, fixing the point of their arrival in her mind. She walked through the mirror portal.

Once again, she felt the oily transition between her world and the world of dreams, and when the misty landscape of the Fade settled around her, she knew that she had come to exactly the right place. A huge mansion stood in front of her, surrounded by a gated wall of stone. Beyond the building, on one side, she could see docks for the boats that floated in the air above the shimmering golden lake. She took a few more steps toward the double staircase that led up to the front door of the mansion — what once had been the dwelling of the Baroness — and finally turned to look over her shoulder.

Fenris was standing behind her, looking around him with a frown creasing his forehead.

Beside him stood the figure of a man dressed in armor with a fully visored helmet. The spirit of Justice, just as she had seen him when she first met him in the Fade in the Blackmarsh. She sighed in relief.

“You’ve brought me back,” Justice said to her. “To the Blackmarsh.”

Rhoane nodded. “I thought that you would be more comfortable returning to a place that was familiar to you. I know that what happened here was unpleasant, but it’s where we first met.”

Justice turned to her, his voice ringing oddly through some combination of the shape of his helm and his own existence as a spirit. “Commander, this is more than I could have expected. I cannot thank you enough for returning me to the Fade — for allowing me to recover the truth of my own spirit.” He stopped and looked over at her. “I only hope that I haven’t destroyed too much of what was Anders through the years of our … entanglement.”

“He’ll have many years to recover,” she answered him, “and we’ll make a safe place for him to do it. For all mages who need a sanctuary from the mistrust of the templars and the Chantry.”

“The air of the Fade,” the spirit of Justice mused. “The last time I experienced it, I was still bound to the mage. But I could feel that I truly belonged here.”

“Then welcome home, Justice,” she said. “You’ve served me faithfully, and I release you from your oath to the Grey Wardens.”

The spirit turned and bowed deeply to her, then walked off toward the shimmering dream lake behind the mansion. She turned to Fenris, whose hand she was still clutching, and smiled at him.

“You did it, Fenris. You brought Anders’ connection to the Fade with you through the eluvian.”

“No, you did it, Rhoane,” he said, shaking his head. “You believed it was possible, and then you made all of us believe it.”

“I told someone once that I was done trying to convince people of things that were hard to believe,” she laughed. “I wish he had warned me that I was telling him a lie.”

“I …” Fenris started and then stopped. His frown deepened for a moment and then he continued. “I would like to see how our friend … how my friend is doing without the Fade spirit inside of him.”

She nodded and led him back the way they had come, finding an image of the eluvian shining in the Fade where they had entered it. On the other side, she could see her sisters, her husband, and her friends, and she fixed their image in her mind as she stepped back through the portal.

The clinging liquid sensation of the mirror followed her as she stepped back out into the circle of fallen stone monoliths, moving forward until Fenris was also standing beside her. They both turned to look at Anders, who had sagged to one side on their return. Clement had rushed over to support the older mage, his hand pressed to Anders’s chest in order to feel its rise and fall. Rhoane went to kneel beside her friend and stroked his forehead with a gentle hand.

After a long moment, Anders opened his eyes and looked at her. “Commander?” he asked, his voice sounding unusually frail and distant.

“Yes, Anders,” she said, trying to sound as reassuring as she could. “Can you stand?”

He nodded and let Clement help him to his feet, one arm draped around the younger mage’s shoulders.

“How do you feel?” she asked him.

He looked around the faces that encircled him and smiled a wan little smile. “I don’t … know.”

“Can you still do magic?” Clement whispered from his side.

Anders straightened himself, pulling away from Clement’s support and brushing his hands down the front of his coat. With practiced ease, he gestured, and a brilliant ball of flame sprang alight in his palm.

Rhoane could hear the sigh of relief that escaped the lips of every person in their circle. She looked over at Anders, her Grey Warden recruit, who was now just Anders again.

“Welcome back, Anders,” she said softly.

She saw the tears spring up in his eyes and the smile that spread slowly across his face. Taking two long strides forward, Anders wrapped her in his arms and swung her around in a sweeping arc, laughing gently against her ear. When he had released her, he hugged Hawke and Bethany, swinging them with as much joyous abandon as he had used with her. He probably would have hugged Fenris, Rhoane thought, if the elf hadn’t stared him down with a thunderous frown. Instead, Anders turned to Clement and took his face into his hands, kissing him passionately on the lips. After a moment of surprise, the younger mage melted into his arms.

Rhoane stepped over to her husband’s side and pressed her lips to Leandra’s sleeping face. “I’ve returned to you, my husband,” she said softly, “just as I vowed that I would.”

“It is good to have you home, ma vhenan,” he whispered back.


End file.
